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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26346394">to find release and seek new hopes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwritesometimes/pseuds/iwritesometimes'>iwritesometimes</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kennel_Boy/pseuds/Kennel_Boy'>Kennel_Boy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Trek: Picard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Hugh | Third of Five Lives, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Whump</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:07:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>37,665</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26346394</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwritesometimes/pseuds/iwritesometimes, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kennel_Boy/pseuds/Kennel_Boy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Elnor stays on the Artifact through the crash on Coppelius. But is he up to the challenge of being the protector the xBs so badly need?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elnor/Hugh | Third of Five</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this fic owes a massive debt for its existence to the loving enabling of the Hugh Crew on Discord.</p><p>also, besides her co-authoring duties, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kennel_Boy/pseuds/Kennel_Boy">Kennel_Boy</a> has also been the world's greatest beta and cheerleader, and not a single word of this would have been written without her&lt;3</p><p>title from the poem "The Apple Orchard" by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Albert Ernest Flemming).</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An array of green lights burned far overhead like a hundred malicious eyes; pain burned across his skin, and he couldn’t move his arms or legs or even his head, which Elnor realized, as he fought back to consciousness, was because he was restrained, not paralyzed. The dull hum of machinery in his ears almost drowned out the voices murmuring behind him, Rihan from the tempo of them but too quiet to make out. He quickly oriented himself, memories flooding back as the cold air of the room bit through his clothes. He was on the Artifact and had been protecting Hugh, Picard’s friend, from the Tal Shiar and their Zhat Vash commander, while they covered Picard and Dr. Asha’s escape. He remembered sheathing his sword, exchanging words with the Zhat Vash—and then she was there, stepping around from behind him into the pool of sickly greenish light that bathed him but left the corners of the room in shadow.</p><p>“Awake, freak?” she said softly in Rihan. Her accent was strange; he still couldn’t place it. She looked at him with a detached kind of interest that made his anger at her flare hotter, the rest of his memories slotting into place: the pain of her blows intermingled with the triumphant feeling of landing hits of his own, the spike of terror as he saw the flashing silver blades, the fiery agony as he moved to take their impact with his own body rather than let them hit Hugh. After that was only pain and darkness and, now, rage. He pulled against his bindings and bared his teeth at her, and said nothing. A small smile crawled from one side of her mouth to the other and was gone, but her dark, distant eyes didn’t change.</p><p>“Yes, I can see you’re back with us, now. Probably hurting a bit, no? You took two doses of poison from my little stingers, and though we’ve done what we can to revive you, there’s no quick fix for the pain, I’m afraid. But don’t worry,” she added, head tilting to one side in a way that put Elnor in mind of a reptile eyeing prey. “Soon you won’t even notice that pain. There are so many, many others I have to show you.” Another, larger knife appeared in her hand. Elnor hadn’t seen her retrieve it. Worry twisted his stomach for the first time. He did not know this woman, and knew the Zhat Vash only from stories of boogeymen told to frighten children. But she was well trained, and very real. He remembered the broken bodies of a dozen xBs lying strewn over the ground, saw the dead light in her eyes now, and suddenly understood the fear of dark stories parents told in the night. “Now. Where has the director gone?”</p><p>Hope flared hot in his chest. They didn’t have Hugh. They didn’t know where he was. That was why he was here, strapped down and threatened with a knife, and not rotting in a corridor somewhere. He still said nothing, but she must have seen the momentary spark of realization in his eyes, because she narrowed hers and leaned closer. “Don’t think so much of your use to me, boy; you are, for the moment, convenient, and that is all. If you don’t give me answers quickly, I will start extracting them from whomever is left alive aboard this cube while you watch.”</p><p>A heavy rumble trembled through the bowels of the ship, seeming far away and vaguely below them. The woman glanced away to her right, and Elnor became aware of movement in the thick shadows beyond the light: other people. “Engines,” someone said, and then a different person snapped, “That’s impossible, they’re gutted, they—” </p><p>“Silence,” the Zhat Vash commanded. “Go make yourself useful and find out what’s going on out there.” They were speaking a dialect Elnor didn’t recognize, but he was fairly sure he understood their gist. What it all <em>meant</em>, however, he had no idea; he’d thought this ship was derelict, and he apparently wasn’t the only one. He couldn’t wonder about it anymore, however; green light glinted off the knife in the woman’s hand again, cold metal pressing to his jaw, then skimming down his neck and parting his robes with almost no effort, leaving a trail of hot, welling pain behind. He breathed into it, drawing the sensation into himself, letting himself feel the pain so that he could more quickly go numb to it.</p><p>“Ah,” the woman murmured, watching him adjust to the discomfort. “So you don’t just wear the robes and the sword. Who are you, that the Qowat Milat should teach you? Are they so desperate for warm bodies these days they’ll take even boys so long as they’re pretty enough?” She lifted the knife to his face again, smiling. “Hm. Perhaps that is the bit of you that should go first—what do you think?” Sinking the tip of the blade into his jaw, she carved a slow, deliberate figure up his cheek; Elnor gritted his teeth against a cry of pain, momentarily intensifying the searing ache as his muscles flexed. He thought she might be cutting words into his skin. “I want to know," she said, conversationally, as she sliced into him, "where he went. The half-meat director. Where did you send him? Has he gone to sabotage the ship? I don’t think he would sacrifice his fellow dogs like that. He cares for them so deeply. I wonder, do you? Is that why you protected him? Would you change your life for theirs?” She paused, flicking little cuts across the bridge of his nose, so close to his eyes he couldn’t help but squeeze them shut instinctively. She had a beautiful, musical laugh. “Round up as many of the mutts as you can,” she said in a carrying tone. “And put them down. Kill another ten now. And ten more when I say.”</p><p>Elnor’s eyes flew open. “No!”</p><p>“Ah! You can speak!” Real delight reached her eyes, then. Elnor cursed himself. “And another ten,” she continued to her men, “for as long as it takes until this child gives us what we want. You know where he is, little sister,” she hissed in his face, the Qowat Milat word sounding sour in her voice. “And you’ll tell—”</p><p>A scream echoed faintly from somewhere, not very far away. And another. Her victorious expression darkened, and she turned away from him. “What the <i>hell</i> is happening out there? Where is Kodr?”</p><p>A doorway on the other side of the room opened, visible as a slice of light in the thick shadows, and another Romulan man stumbled in. “They’re attacking!”</p><p>“Who is?”</p><p>“The Borg!”</p><p>The Zhat Vash swore, rounding on Elnor again, plunging her knife straight into his upper arm. He screamed, choking it off as best he could; this close, he could feel her breath on his face, and she twisted the knife a little, fire consuming the whole left side of his body. “This is his doing,” she whispered sharply. “Isn’t it? He’s activated them, somehow. Where is he?”</p><p>He snarled at her, spit in her face. Shrieking, she pulled the knife out with a wet sound that seemed loud in his ears and sank the blade into his opposite shoulder; beneath the breathtaking pain, he felt his right arm go instantly limp in the binding. Tears mingled with the blood on his face, going cold almost as soon as he shed them. He couldn’t quell the trembling of pain and fear in his body, but he could keep his teeth clamped together, keep saying nothing, let her waste her fury and her time on him while Hugh...while Hugh…</p><p>“Commander, they’re trying to take back the Artifact, we should—”</p><p>“<em>Where is he?</em>” she demanded. Droplets of Elnor’s blood stood out dark on her pale cheek. Ringing silence filled the room—silence. No more machinery hum, no more rumbling of distant engines. Complete silence. “Find him!” she continued, shooting wild-eyed looks at the others. “Find him <em>now</em>. Kill anyone in the way—interrogate the Federation staff if you have to.”</p><p>“But the treaty—”</p><p>“Is void. This is a declaration of war. If this worm won’t tell us, we’ll find someone who will. <em>Someone</em> on this ship knows where he’s gone; there must be a control room we weren’t told about.” She hauled her knife out of him again with a sickening crack, more painful than it had gone in, wrenching a shuddering gasp from him against his will. “We will find him,” she told Elnor, breathing harder. “This won’t work. The Artifact is dead, all the drones on it are dead. You are protecting dead men, Qowat Milat. Is this what you want? To protect dead men and monsters?”</p><p>“You’ll never find him,” Elnor said, barely recognizing his own shaking voice. He swallowed. “He is where you cannot reach him.” <i>The immense power hidden</i>...this was what Hugh had meant. He’d activated the xBs somehow when he returned to the queencell. “And he is <em>not</em> a monster. You are.”</p><p>She shook her head. “Pathetic.” The green on her knife when she raised it again was now Elnor’s blood. He set his jaw and held her eyes, braced for the strike, hoping he had at least bought Hugh some time.</p><p>And then the entire ship came alive around them, the world listing sharply sideways, throwing the Zhat Vash and several others in the room off-balance. There was a roar of whirring power through the whole echoing cube, vibration Elnor could feel in his teeth as a power surge made some of those green eyes overhead pop into showers of sparks. The screaming outside the room intensified.</p><p>“We have to go,” one of her men said frantically, catching her by the shoulders. She shrugged him off just in time for the ship to right itself and an explosion to thunder through the corridor outside. “We have to go <em>now.</em>”</p><p>Cold rage filled her eyes when she looked back to Elnor; he slumped, bleeding heavily, in his bonds, but he managed to meet her eyes, to smile. She sneered and raised her knife again, as the man who’d tried to grab her, and half a dozen others, began to flee the room. Elnor saw fire flickering beyond the doorway, and then, silhouetted there, another figure.</p><p>“Get away from him.” The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, from the very walls of the ship, up through Elnor’s bones. The Zhat Vash covered her ears, ducking a little as she turned. Suddenly the doorway was crowded with people, and as they entered the circle of light, Elnor saw it was Hugh and a dozen or more xBs, most of them still encased in Borg suits and hardware. “Leave this place. <em>Now</em>.” The shadows in the room seemed to grow deeper, making Hugh’s eyes look black in his face. Relief and joy bubbled out of Elnor in a soft, desperate sound, and Hugh’s head ticked toward him mechanically; he regarded Elnor for a moment, and then the corners of his mouth curled up.</p><p>The Zhat Vash woman was already drawing her pistol, but the xBs swarmed her immediately. Disruptor fire burst twice, burning smoking holes in the bulkhead, and then fell silent as she screamed. Hugh closed the space to her in two strides and wrapped one hand around her throat, restraining her, his face set in an expression Elnor recognized; he’d given her a choice, and she’d chosen death.</p><p>The Voice came again; Hugh’s mouth moved, but the greater part of the sound did not come from him, seeming instead to shimmer in the air, thickening it. “This is over,” it said, as the xBs all closed in around her in a tight knot. Her screams pitched higher. None of the xBs made a sound. They simply, efficiently, took her apart.</p><p>Then Hugh was there, between him and the others, and Elnor focused on him instead. This close, Elnor could see that Hugh’s eyes really were black, all the way through. But when he spoke again, it was his voice alone, soft, sounding as he had when he’d pulled Elnor close and sworn to retake the cube. “It is over.”</p><p>He unlocked the restraints holding Elnor in place; Elnor’s legs almost immediately buckled, and Hugh hefted him up with greater strength than Elnor would have expected. Pain screamed through every part of him, his breath hitching sharply as he swallowed back more reflexive tears. Hugh’s arms around him were steady and warm, and Elnor clung to them, his vision greying at the edges. “We are here,” said the Voice. “You are safe.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Illustration for chapter one, by <a href="https://average-xmendrawings.tumblr.com/">Luis Laczky</a>, commissioned by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kennel_Boy/pseuds/Kennel_Boy">Kennel_Boy</a>.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Elnor was not aware of blacking out, but he must have. The next thing he knew clearly was waking up in a quiet room, in a bed piled with silver blankets. He was still on the cube, with its ugly grey surroundings and faintly greenish illumination along the ceiling. As he came to, he saw Hugh sitting beside the bed, his arm outstretched, palm resting over Elnor’s heart; he looked up as Elnor stirred, gave him a small smile. His eyes were his own again, one dark, one pale, and that realization made memory rush back, all at once.</p>
<p>"Welcome back to the world, Elnor," Hugh said softly. His voice didn’t echo like it had before, filling the Artifact with a burning rage. But it still seemed different—distant, in a way. "We were worried.”</p>
<p>"What happened?" Elnor reached down, clasped Hugh’s wrist with his right hand; his shoulder ached in protest, but otherwise he had no trouble moving his arm now. "Are you alright? The, the xBs, are they—?"</p>
<p>"There were few casualties. The Romulan colonel was focused on you." Though Hugh was looking at Elnor, his manner was somewhat distracted, as if his attention was being split. "She is dead now. The Artifact is ours. When the evacuation of Romulan and Federation civilians is complete, we will assist Picard." More gently, he added, "She <i>was</i> a monster. We are grateful for your bravery, Elnor."</p>
<p>Elnor frowned as Hugh’s words settled uncomfortably over him. “‘We,’” he repeated softly, his voice scratchy. “You. You were connected to them. Weren’t you? That’s what the queencell does. Lets you connect to the ship and all the Borg on it.”</p>
<p>Hugh glanced away as if pained. Or ashamed. "It was necessary that we awaken the others, to have a force that would convince the Romulans to stand down.”</p>
<p>“And you are still connected?”</p>
<p>“Yes. To all of them. The xBs secure in the unity of the collective once more. Those grieving the loss of their autonomy. The drones tasting individuality for the first time. Understanding...having a 'self,’ while being part of a whole.”</p>
<p>Elnor’s stomach pitted in worry. He didn’t know what it meant, that Hugh had reconnected to the others. Were they now one with the Collective, again? No...no, or they would have tried to assimilate him. They would not have killed the Romulans or obeyed Hugh’s commands. Elnor’s hand tightened a little on Hugh’s wrist. “Are you really alright?” He remembered Picard talking about the horror of the Borg, the hive mind; he couldn’t help but imagine Hugh lost to it, no longer the fierce protector he had been when leading Elnor back to the queencell. The idea frightened him, and he rejected it immediately. Hugh was still Hugh, in some way, even now. Elnor would see to it that he remained that way, if there was a danger he might begin to lose himself.</p>
<p>“We are very tired, but...not hurt." The redness of Hugh's eyes spoke to more than being tired, but he said nothing of that. "How do you feel?"</p>
<p>Elnor's hand loosened slightly, but he didn't let go, rubbing his thumb over Hugh's sleeve in a way meant to be comforting. Despite Hugh’s assurance, Elnor still felt unsettled. "I'm alright," he said. Then, realizing that wasn't entirely true, he added, "I...hurt. All over.” But he laughed a little as he said it. "But I am alive, and not bleeding anymore. I am very, very grateful to you and the others. For saving me."</p>
<p>Hugh’s eyes seemed to come more into focus, then. He looked pleased. "You said you were cold. It was easier for us to keep you warm here, in Hugh’s quarters, than in the sickbay," Hugh (and all the xBs who were Hugh) explained. Curiosity piqued, Elnor looked around the space more completely, but there was little to mark it as Hugh’s room or anyone else’s. There was a bed, a computer desk, a wardrobe, all clearly retrofitted to the room, none of them made of the same blocky grey metal as the rest of the Artifact; one corner of the room was enclosed in etched glass, probably the shower. But there were no pictures on the walls or personal effects that he could see. It might have been physically warmer here than elsewhere on the ship, but it was still a cold space. "Your wounds are healed,” Hugh continued, “but full mending will take time. Rest. We will take this vessel to Picard." Hugh lay his hand over Elnor's. "Now we will protect you, Elnor. If you have any need, tell us. Hugh will hear."</p>
<p>Elnor frowned a little, his heart lurching unexpectedly, but he nodded, clasped Hugh's hand. Licking his lips, unsure, he said, "Will you stay like this? When this is over?"</p>
<p>"Unknown. We are one and we are many. We are scared, we are angry, we are determined, we are…becoming. We need a voice to unite us. We need Hugh." Hugh reached out and cupped Elnor's face in a careful, almost tender motion. "Don’t fear. You are safe." Hugh smiled faintly. "Elnor must not be assimilated."</p>
<p>Elnor turned his face into the touch, though moving hurt more and more by the moment, his head beginning to feel cottony. He didn't know what this all meant, exactly, and he didn't know if it would be alright. If...if Hugh would be alright. If Hugh even <i>was</i>, anymore, really. But he knew he didn't understand it all, and that, in the end, this had been the only way to save the ship and get the Tal Shiar off of it. If it weren't for Hugh becoming like this, neither of them would be here talking, and none of the rest of the people on the ship would have survived. "I'm not worried about me," he told Hugh with a small smile in return.</p>
<p>"We know," he replied. "Rest. We must attend to the collective now." Hugh squeezed his hand and rose to his feet, and Elnor’s eyes fluttered closed. "Hugh will return. We promise.”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Elnor was still in bed, half-dozing, when the entire ship abruptly powered down. He felt his stomach rise sickeningly as the cube began to drop, lifeless and dark. There was no way to know what was happening, and little time to do anything. When he staggered out of bed and manually pushed open the door to the corridor, he could see little more than he’d been able to before, only faint pinpricks of light strobing wildly through the dimness. Someone just outside the door grabbed him by the shoulder and pressed him against a wall, where the bulkhead began to shift behind him, around him, rearranging into a sort of cage to hold him in place. Then the person was gone, and Elnor heard wind whistling through the massive, lifeless frame of the Artifact, escalating to a roar. The air grew hot around him; his scream was lost to the sounds of several million tons of Borg ship falling planetward.</p>
<p>He didn’t lose consciousness fully, this time; his makeshift harness kept him immobile as the Artifact crashed for what seemed like forever, shrieking metal and living voices mingling, light spearing through new cracks in the hull, with water rushing in soon after. Finally, finally, the sound and movement ceased, and Elnor lifted his aching head, wincing when he touched his temple and his fingers came away sticky with blood. But he was alive, and awake. For a while he thought he’d be trapped inside the wall of the ship, because it didn’t seem to respond to him trying to wriggle out of its hold, but then parts of it began to break away, and he dropped to the floor, now slanting at an incline, but traversable.</p>
<p>Emergency lights came up dimly as he picked his way through the halls, stopping now and then to check on xBs he found collapsed along the way. Two of them had not survived, and several more were injured, but most were alright, or well enough to help him gather up their hurt crewmates to take them to the nearest sickbay. “Is Hugh alright?” he asked one, but received only an uncertain look in return. His heart sank, but then another man made a soft sound, reached out and took him gently by the arm, leading him deeper into the ship.</p>
<p>This way to the queencell did not seem familiar; he wondered fleetingly how many different secret ways there were in this place, or if the ship had remade itself since he’d come this way with Hugh. They rounded a corner, and Elnor could see, ahead of him, Hugh slumped in the middle of the chamber floor, connected by a tangle of cables to the ceiling. He broke into a run, his heart in his throat. “Hugh,” he cried, taking him by the shoulders. Hugh fell heavily into his arms as, with a sharp, mechanical whir, the cables detached from him and retracted. He wasn’t breathing.</p>
<p>“Hugh!” Elnor lay him out on the cold floor of the queencell, pressed his ear to Hugh’s chest, frantic. His heartbeat was weak and fast, seeming very far away inside him. Suddenly, with a jerk, Hugh heaved in a great, ragged breath, eyes flying open and staring straight up in sightless terror. Flooded with both panic and relief, Elnor looked up to the xB crouched beside him. “Help me carry him.”</p>
<p>Hugh roused somewhat as they took him back to sickbay, murmuring and looking around, disoriented. Elnor squeezed his hand, slung over his still-aching shoulder. “You’re alright, Hugh,” he murmured. “You’re safe. It’s over.” By the time they lowered him into a bed, Hugh was out again, but at least his breathing was steady. It was Elnor’s turn to wait by his side, monitoring Hugh’s vital signs and helpless to do much else, but he didn’t have to wait long. Hugh’s eyelashes flickered, and when he slowly opened his eyes, they came all the way into focus on Elnor, no longer elsewhere. Elnor pressed his hand, giving him a soft smile that crumpled the moment he saw tears well up and spill over, sliding back toward Hugh’s temples, into his hair. He struggled to sit up. Elnor immediately moved to support him, Hugh’s arms trembling beneath him as he barely managed to get upright.</p>
<p>“Hugh? Don't try to move. We’ve—the Artifact crashed down. But we’re alright.”</p>
<p>Hugh’s breathing grew short and shaky, and he folded in on himself, pushing shaking fingers into his hair. “No...n-no. Not alright. I. I felt them die...so many...”</p>
<p>Cold realization froze Elnor’s heart: Hugh had been connected when they crashed, not just to the ship, but to every xB on board. Elnor had no idea how many casualties there had been, but Hugh would have felt every single light go out. “Hugh,” he breathed, rubbing at his shoulder, swallowing back his own dread and fear. “You did everything you could. There are still so many here. Because you saved us.”</p>
<p>It was a long moment before Hugh's trembling stilled and he lifted his face again, looking more himself, but drawn and sad. He nodded mechanically. “You're right,” he whispered. “There...are still so many here. We need to see who's hurt. The ship doesn't have power. We need to get the replicators and weapons working—” He tried to turn and slide his legs off the bed, hands wrapped white-knuckled around the edge of it. Elnor held him right where he was.</p>
<p>“Hugh, you cannot get up, yet,” he said, dark eyes wide as he took in Hugh’s sickly-pale face, damp with sweat, tears still clinging to his eyelashes. “You aren’t strong enough yet. Please. Stay here. We can work on the repairs.” He gestured between himself and the xB who had helped him carry Hugh in. When he glanced at him over his shoulder, Elnor saw three more people hovering in the doorway, watching quietly but clearly anxious about Hugh.</p>
<p>The man at Elnor’s elbow drew a little nearer. “Let us help, Hugh,” he insisted quietly. Hugh looked stricken, then dropped his face into his hands, again, taking a long, shuddering breath and saying nothing.</p>
<p>Elnor hesitated, hands still gentle on Hugh’s shoulders. Then, unsure of what else to do, he turned to the people behind him. “I don't know how to fix this ship,” he said, “but you all do. Please, can you help me try to get the power back on? And get the injured to the infirmaries?”</p>
<p>The xBs nodded, but still looked to Hugh; finally, he lifted his head, murmuring, “Sorry...it's...I'll be alright.” He took another breath, steadier now, and when he spoke again, his voice was stronger. “Elnor's right. Make getting power back on the priority. The infirmaries won't do us much good without it. Hook the replicators up to energy blocks if you need to; at least then we can replicate basic supplies. And...please be careful looking for wounded. Remember that some of us aren’t verbal yet.”</p>
<p>The xBs nodded and left silently, leaving the two of them alone in the cold, dusky sickbay, lit only by pale yellow emergency strip lighting along the floors. Hugh sat still and slumped beside him, still breathing like he couldn’t quite get enough air. Elnor felt helpless in the face of his unknowable pain. All he could do was draw a little closer, keep his hand on Hugh’s back, trying to share his burden any way he could. <i>Qalankhkai</i> might mean <i>sworn sword</i>, but there was so much more to it than fighting and bleeding and sometimes dying. Sometimes supporting someone’s cause meant this: hurting together, grieving together, unable to do otherwise. It was just that Elnor felt so inadequate to the loss he knew Hugh was feeling.</p>
<p>“There were so many of them,” Hugh said dully, as if giving voice to Elnor’s thoughts. “Only just awake...”</p>
<p>“I know,” Elnor murmured back, though he didn’t. He couldn’t. “Their deaths are on the hands of the Tal Shiar. If you hadn't taken control, they would have the Artifact, now. And they would never have let any of them live.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Hugh echoed. “I just wanted better for all of them. None of them asked for this. None of us ever got on one of these damn ships of our own free will!”</p>
<p>Nodding, face pained, Elnor said, “But because of you, the ones who remain will get off of it under their own free will. And we will mourn the ones lost. No one on this ship will forget them.” After a moment, Elnor asked softly, “You’re apart from them again, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>Hugh nodded. “When the power failed.” He took a shaky breath. “And...I don’t have it in me to reconnect again, right now. We’ll just have to do this on our own from now on.”</p>
<p>Elnor shook his head a little. “Not alone,” he murmured, and felt his heart lift when Hugh squeezed his hand in reply.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” Hugh said, taking a deep breath, letting it out. “You're right, I'm...not thinking clearly.” He squeezed Elnor’s arm. “I'll rest. You. Help the others. Please.”</p>
<p>---</p>
<p>Whatever Hugh had managed to do with the ship before they lost power, there were fewer casualties than there might have been; but still many had not survived the crash. Elnor and the xBs worked to move the dead into a long, empty room that might once have been a cargo bay, a solemn, grueling task that seemed to take much longer than it did. The xBs repairing the ship’s systems had auxiliary power restored and the sickbays functional again by the time Elnor made his way back to check on Hugh, heavy-hearted and aching all over. When he walked in, there was an older man, bald and scarred as many of the xBs seemed to be, talking quietly with Hugh, who was sitting up and sipping a cup of water, looking exhausted and pale but better than he had. The xB had come to tell him Locutus was aboard the cube. Elnor and Hugh traded a look. After Elnor had satisfied himself Hugh was strong enough to walk, they followed the man down a couple of levels to what was now more or less the ground floor of a listing, lifeless building. Golden sunlight caught on motes of dust and sand streaming in through a massive crack running nearly forty feet up the ship’s hull, and into this breach had wandered a ragtag band of familiar faces.</p>
<p>“Picard!” called Elnor, jumping down from an uneven section of the floor, turning back to extend a hand to help Hugh down, too. “You’re alive!” He ran to gather Picard in a hug, impulsive, nearly bowling him over. He couldn’t stop smiling, relief warming him down to his toes. The whole crew of <i>La Sirena</i> was here, alive and well, though looking as shaken and tired as Elnor felt. “This fills me with joy,” he declared, clapping Picard on the shoulders and looking around at them all. The admiral smiled, seeming equally pleased to see him, and Elnor couldn’t deny he felt guiltily warm in the light of his regard.</p>
<p>“Hello, admiral,” Hugh said, in a much more subdued voice, as he approached. He stood some distance apart, looking wan in the sunlight, and did not smile. “I’m glad to see you made it.”</p>
<p>“I very much return the sentiment, Hugh,” Picard said, though his brow furrowed as he got a good look at Hugh, and his eyes slid away quickly, toward the others. “Ah, allow me to introduce my crew. You’ve met my qalankhkai, of course…”</p>
<p>While <i>La Sirena</i>’s crew rested and hydrated, Elnor helped some of the xBs hook battery packs up to the replicators to try to get some food for everyone. It wouldn’t be fancy food, but protein bars were better than nothing. “Are other systems operational?” he heard the admiral ask Hugh.</p>
<p>“They can be,” the director replied, frowning where he sat on a chunk of shattered hull. “What do you need?”</p>
<p>“Long-range scanners.”</p>
<p>Elnor’s heart sank when Raffi and Rios got the scanner display operational and the field immediately lit up with dozens and dozens of bright spots. They all stared at it in stunned silence for a moment. “Oh man,” Raffi breathed.</p>
<p>“How many?” Rios asked.</p>
<p>“Uh…218 warbirds.”</p>
<p>Turning away, shocked numb, Elnor noticed Hugh and Picard in the corner of the room, talking quietly, stealing glances at the scanner display. They seemed to be arguing. Elnor bit his lip; just as he was about to go see what the trouble was, Hugh drew away from Picard slightly, squaring his shoulders, and shook his head rigidly.</p>
<p>“It’s decided,” he said quietly. His eyes slid to Elnor, and his face softened somewhat, before he turned and marched away.</p>
<p>“What’s wrong?” Elnor asked Picard as he sidled up. The admiral shook his head.</p>
<p>“I’ve just been reminded of how stubborn that man can be when he sets his mind to something,” Picard replied, in a tone that seemed more resigned than upset, as he watched Hugh go. Looking back to Elnor, his expression shifted with something unreadable. “Elnor...do you have a moment to talk?”</p>
<p>Frowning, Elnor nodded. “Yes. Of course. Is everything alright?”</p>
<p>“It will be,” the admiral said. “I believe that to be true, in any case.” He gestured to an overturned crate, indicating Elnor should sit. “I have to relay some information to you, which I will only do once, and then I do not wish to speak of it again. But as it concerns you, and everyone here, you deserve to know.”</p>
<p>The news, when it came, brought Elnor immediately back to his feet, mouth open to interject. But Picard held up a hand. “As I said, I do not wish to discuss it,” he said, not unkindly. His mouth quirked in a half-smile. “I need everyone to continue performing to the best of their ability, and that includes not treating me any differently than they did before. Are you able to do this for me?”</p>
<p>Elnor took a breath, huffed it out through his nose; he looked away a moment, blinking back tears he would not shed. He knew instinctively that this man would see them as weakness. “I am your qalankhkai,” he said, when he trusted his voice again. “I will do what you ask me to.”</p>
<p>“Good,” Picard said, patting him gently on the arm. “You have served me admirably. I appreciate your hard work.”</p>
<p>Elnor looked back at him, at the old man his mentor had become. He seemed...small, in a way, now. Not in spirit, certainly, but. Physically diminished. He wondered that he hadn’t noticed it before: the tightness around Picard’s eyes, the way he stood as if bearing an almost intolerable weight. He supposed that he had before been seeing Picard as he remembered him, the grand, tall, stately memory overlaying the present reality; now, like a hologram, that image had faded away, leaving only the truth of a waning light fighting one final time against the darkness. Elnor had grieved for this man so many times over his life, but even so, this grief felt different, somehow, in its finality.</p>
<p>He focused on helping get more of the ship’s systems back online, as silent as the xBs he worked shoulder to shoulder with. He was grateful for their unjudging quiet, the space in which to turn over his thoughts in his mind. Not for the first time, he missed having a house full of sisters to help him talk through his worries. He missed being able to be completely honest with the people around him, not having to keep most of his thoughts to himself either because they wouldn’t be understood, or because they would be seen as intrusive. Humans all kept their thoughts and emotions so private, and he felt no closer to deciphering their manner than he had been when he left Vashti.</p>
<p>As he was carrying some equipment from one sickbay to another, he passed by an open office door and saw Hugh inside, regarding a computer display with a furrowed brow, hand clasped over his mouth. Elnor paused by the door, then stepped inside. “Hugh? Is there anything you need help with?”</p>
<p>Startling, Hugh looked up at him, his face clearing somewhat. “Good lord. Do you always sneak everywhere?”</p>
<p>Elnor grinned crookedly, setting down his burden on another desk. “I was not sneaking! If I had been, I’d have gotten much closer before you realized I was there.”</p>
<p>“Well, that’s very comforting,” Hugh replied, smile flickering across his lips. As Elnor came nearer, Hugh quickly gestured away whatever was on his terminal readout. The worry lines in his face stood out stark in the green and yellow desk lights. </p>
<p>“How are you feeling?” Elnor asked him gently.</p>
<p>“I’m...I’ll be alright,” Hugh assured him, and though he sounded tired, he also sounded as though he believed it. “I—thank you, again,” he said softly, “for...everything. For all your help and...” He took an uneven breath, and Elnor found himself shuffling a little closer. The memory of contact—of Hugh’s skin under his palm, Hugh’s hand on him as he woke—made him itch to reach out and touch him again, steady him. But now that they were both upright, facing each other in the quiet dim aftermath of the day, he felt somehow that he shouldn’t. “For being there. I don’t know if I would have gotten up again, if not for you.”</p>
<p>Elnor frowned. “You would have,” he said, quiet, firm.</p>
<p>Hugh gave him a penetrating look. “You seem so sure.”</p>
<p>“I haven’t seen you do anything to make me doubt it,” Elnor replied, shrugging a little.</p>
<p>“You’ve known me for eight hours,” Hugh said, shaking his head incredulously.</p>
<p>Elnor’s eyebrows ticked up. “You hadn’t known me an hour before you trusted me with your life. And then you came to save mine. You didn’t have to do that.”</p>
<p>Elnor couldn’t be sure in the low light, but he thought Hugh looked flustered as he turned back to his desk and powered down the console, removing and pocketing the data rods. “That’s different,” he said briskly.</p>
<p>Elnor laughed, and it startled them both. “No it isn’t,” he said, but he didn’t want to argue. Something about Hugh seemed to suggest that he didn’t lose very many arguments, and although Elnor thought he might have enjoyed debating him—about anything, about life or death or the best kind of tea—here were more important uses of their time, right now. He turned to gather up his box of supplies and stepped out of the darkened office, Hugh right behind him. “What do you plan to do, you and the xBs, after all this is over?”</p>
<p>Hugh sighed quietly, falling into step alongside him; Elnor shortened up his stride a little to match him. “I have a feeling my plans won’t factor into it very much,” he said wryly. “We’ll wait for the Federation to come pick us up, and then wait for the Federation to decide what to do with us. I’m sure the Romulan Free State have wasted no time letting them know just how their treaty was broken, and by whom.”</p>
<p>Elnor bristled. “You were protecting innocent people that <i>they</i> were killing!”</p>
<p>“By stealing Romulan property after interfering with a Romulan officer’s investigation and withholding information,” Hugh returned. “The case against us is already being built. For some, our being xBs will be more than enough reason to find us suspicious.”</p>
<p>He said it so matter-of-factly. The words congealed cold in the pit of Elnor’s stomach. “Suspicious of what? Of...of trying to live? To survive?”</p>
<p>Hugh smiled mirthlessly. “Yes,” he said simply, and Elnor flinched. That cool smile warmed a little, more sincere and more sad at the same time. “We <i>will</i> survive,” he added. “Because we must. We’ve gotten good at it, after all this time. And I don’t intend to go down without a fight. I am hoping that the synth settlement has a functioning communications grid; the sooner I make my report to my supervisors back on Earth, the better it will be for <i>our</i> case against the Romulans.”</p>
<p>Elnor slowed as they approached the sickbay door. A pair of xBs crouched outside it, connecting a battery pack to an access panel in the wall. They looked up as Hugh and Elnor approached, and one of them, an Orion man, gave Hugh a small, familiar smile that made Elnor’s heart squeeze tight for a moment. Hugh smiled back, settling his hand on the man’s shoulder briefly, before he turned and gave Elnor a nod.</p>
<p>“I expect I’ll be asking for more of your help before the end,” he said, voice rough and quiet.</p>
<p>Elnor shook his head, gave Hugh the freest, brightest smile he could muster, wanting to bolster him, if he could. They still had so much work to do. “Whatever you need,” he assured him. “I’m bound to see this through. And I want to help you if I can.”</p>
<p>“I’m never going to say no to that,” Hugh replied.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Elnor's translation of <i>qalankhkai</i> as "sworn sword" is totally made-up, but it felt like it might be close to what they were going for.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I’m beginning to feel,” Picard said heavily, “that all we do these days is say goodbye.”</p><p>“Yes, but this time’s worse,” Elnor replied, watching him intently, eyes stinging. “Because you’re dying.”</p><p>He knew when he said it Picard wouldn’t be happy to hear it, and indeed, the exasperated look he traded with the others made Elnor feel very small and young again. “You go ahead,” he told the others. “I’ll join you.”</p><p>They filed out, Elnor giving them all a wave goodbye that made him feel even more childish. Hugh lingered behind at the opening in the Artifact, adjusting the strap of the bag slung across his chest and looking between Picard and Elnor, clearly uncomfortable.</p><p>“I’m torn,” Elnor said unevenly, frowning at the admiral. “You need protection now more than ever.”</p><p>“No,” Picard said. “The xBs need your protection much more than I do. And you must try to get the defensive systems here back online.”</p><p>“I may never see you again.” Elnor’s voice cracked, and he knew he would not be able to hold the tears back this time. But then, he was not very well-practiced at hiding sincere emotions; if Picard thought him weak for that, he wouldn’t be the first.</p><p>But the old man’s face was soft as he watched him. “Well, that’s true of any two people who are saying goodbye,” he murmured.</p><p>Elnor caught his breath sharply. “Pic—”</p><p>“El—”</p><p>They just looked at each other for a moment, Elnor’s eyes welling over. He knew then, with a certainty he hated, tried to push away, that he really wouldn’t see him again. His hands curled into ineffectual fists at his side, and Picard gave him a smile that made him feel as fragile as glass.</p><p>“I am very, very proud of you,” Picard whispered.</p><p>Elnor nodded jerkily, unable to say anything, pressing his hand to his chest instinctively, as if to stop himself breaking right down the middle. A decade and a half of hope and fear, ending like this, must simply shatter him in half. But the pride in Admiral Picard’s eyes eased the pain a little, so that when he turned to go, it didn’t feel so much like being left alone again.</p><p>Hugh nodded at Elnor, not looking at Picard as he passed by. “I’ll be back as quickly as I can,” he said. “And I’ll see if I can’t find us some replacement parts while I’m there. Focus on the shields and phaser turrets. They’re likely all we’ll have time for.” He paused, then added, quieter, “And try to get some sleep, Elnor. You still aren’t totally recovered, yet, and I’m afraid you’re going to need your strength.” With a last little smile, he turned and left, and Elnor went back to work.</p><p>Nightfall on Coppelius brought abrupt cold, seeping in through the broken sections of the Artifact’s hull. Elnor and the xBs took shelter in the interior of the ship, where their sleeping quarters were still mostly intact; it was a long, dimly lit room as uninviting as every other part of the Artifact, lined down either side with industrial-looking bunks, thinly padded. They were all sleeping in shifts, returning—Elnor assumed—to routines they’d been keeping before the crash. The next work crew were just starting to stir as Elnor came in. “Dress warmly,” he told them, as they all turned to look at him—not as a group, but one by one, as any crowd of people might have done. He smiled reassuringly at them; he couldn’t say he understood exactly why they seemed willing to listen to him, but he wanted them to know they could trust him. He wasn’t Hugh, but he’d look out for them to the best of his ability. He suspected Hugh had told them to look after him, too. “And come wake me immediately if there are any problems or danger.”</p><p>There were plenty of empty bunks. As he passed by, he noticed a woman sitting on the edge of hers, curled in on herself with her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook, but she didn’t make a sound. Alarmed, he went to her, putting out his hand instinctively; at the last moment, he hesitated, unsure whether she would want to be touched. She was sobbing.</p><p>“Her friend is gone,” came a soft voice at his elbow. There stood a very young xB, painfully thin, with a ragged face and one vividly blue eye. They clung to the post of the bunk on his right, and nodded at the empty lower mattress when Elnor frowned in confusion. “She used to sleep here. But she’s gone now.”</p><p>The crying woman stilled, her shoulders sagging. When she lowered her hands from her scarred face, Elnor was surprised to see she had both her eyes, dark and red-rimmed from crying. Those eyes turned up to him, and Elnor didn’t know what to do but to drop to a crouch in front of her, take her damp hands in his own and hold them tight. “I am sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry she’s gone. I’m sorry the ones who should have cared about your safety did not. I do. I want to keep you safe.” The words felt so small and thin, no matter how sincerely meant. He took a steadying breath. “But...I know that doesn’t change what happened. I grieve with you, my sister.”</p><p>She still didn’t say anything—perhaps she couldn’t—but he could see she understood him. He stayed there, holding her hands as she cried a little longer, until finally the young xB came around to her other side and, bending low to murmur in her ear, coaxed her to lie down, curling up against her back as the woman subsided into exhausted, fitful little sobs, still staring at the empty bed next to hers.</p><p>Elnor climbed to the upper level of another bunk and curled into a miserable ball, shivering, not even bothering to kick off his boots. This place was cold and broken and full of clinging heartache, and he hated it as deeply as he felt sudden, intense devotion to these people. He couldn’t imagine living here, adrift in the cold black of hostile space, surrounded by people who saw him as less than an animal. He couldn’t imagine waking up for the first time to a place as unwelcoming as this, and yet...every one of these people had. They deserved better than this, more than this—deserved light and warmth and safety. Elnor clutched his tan qalanq to his chest, closed his eyes, and tried to reach for sleep through the burning anger simmering under his skin, beginning to harden to determination. As Hugh had said, they all deserved so much better. And Elnor was going to see that they got it.</p><p>---</p><p>By the time Hugh returned the next day, on a small hovercraft loaded down with supplies, the crew of the cube had managed to restore the ship’s main power and get the defenses back online—better than either of them had hoped for. The grim set of Hugh’s mouth told Elnor not to ask him how his report to his superiors had gone; he helped unload the skiff and got to work on the Artifact’s communications array, destroyed long before the crash.</p><p>“We’ll need to be able to coordinate with Coppelius Station, if we’re to help with the counterattack,” Hugh had told him, “and with the Federation, when they finally send someone to collect us.” Elnor glanced over at him now, watched him push his hair off his sweat-sticky forehead as they and half a dozen others worked on righting the ruined communications equipment on the outside of the cube, the sun blazing and oppressive overhead. Elnor was used to desert heat, but the weather here threatened to overwhelm even him. Luckily, the ship was making repairs to itself; they were mostly just here for the fine adjustments. Elnor was grateful to spend a little time outside, even more so to be making such progress with the ship, but Hugh still carried around a black mood like a shroud. He he looked like, for all his admonitions to Elnor, he hadn’t gotten a minute of sleep the night before. Elnor wanted very badly to draw him back inside the cool interior of the cube, ask him what was wrong, what his overseers had said to him. But when Hugh glanced over, caught him looking, Elnor just turned back to the metal antennae he was meant to be straightening, knowing they didn’t have time to waste. Later. He would ask Hugh later.</p><p>After they finished running diagnostics on the communications relay, though, Hugh disappeared into the twisting maze of the Artifact, saying he had a preliminary report to finish up to send back to Earth. Elnor expected to see him for dinner, perhaps, but as he roved around the ship, looking in on the people recuperating in the sickbays, or righting the wreckage of this place that had been both their prison and their home, he didn’t catch sight of him anywhere. Once he felt confident that everyone was doing okay—that the most limited of the xBs were safe amongst their peers, for the time being, and that the cube’s systems were able to provide everyone with enough food and comfort to survive another night in this desert—he went looking for Hugh, checking all the places he thought he might be, getting lost trying to find his way back to them all, learning a little more of the ship at a painstaking pace as he went.</p><p>It was late when he turned down a silent corridor where it seemed no one had been for perhaps a very long time. He hadn’t seen another soul for half an hour. Elnor was just getting concerned that he was really, dangerously lost when he heard a clanging sound, like something metal being dropped from a great height, and then, a moment later, heard it again. Quickening his pace, he followed the echoing sounds of heavy machinery, emerging from a corridor into a wide, open network of narrow catwalks over a precipitous drop through every level of the cube. He had trouble, at first, understanding what he was seeing: below him, a curve of the same tritanium hull plating he had become so used to seeing in right angles everywhere around the Artifact. The presence of an actual <i>curve</i> somewhere on the ship was so shocking he thought his eyes were playing tricks, but when he blinked and looked back, it was still there, a large, spheroid shape, parts of it moving and shifting as the living metal reshaped itself cacophonously around a figure standing in the middle of it.</p><p>“Hugh!” Elnor called down to him, and Hugh looked up from the PADD he’d been hurriedly tapping, spotting him leaning over the railing of the catwalk above.</p><p>“Elnor? How did you find your way here?”</p><p>“Mostly by accident.” Elnor looked up and down the catwalk, spying steps at one end. He descended to Hugh’s level; from closer up, the metal sphere was even bigger and no less completely baffling. “What...is this?”</p><p>Hugh had returned to working on his PADD, brow knitted; from here, Elnor could see two cables leading from overhead, like the ones in the queencell, into what he knew vaguely to be ports on Hugh’s back. He frowned a little, looking at them; they felt obscurely threatening, like they were somehow feeding off of Hugh. But Hugh seemed unbothered as he glanced from the little screen in his hand to another screen in the surface of the wall in front of him, displaying a completely unreadable scroll of data.</p><p>“It’s a ship,” Hugh finally replied, not looking up. “Sort of an escape pod. If the rest of the cube were compromised, the queen or another xB might be able to get to safety in this. As far as I can tell, this one was never launched. When it isn’t in use, these parts of the ship perform other functions.”</p><p>Elnor reached up, resting his palm against the cold, uneven surface of bulkhead beside him. “There’s only one on the Artifact?”</p><p>“There’s only ever one.” Hugh entered a command into the terminal, and more pieces of ship began moving into place around them, assembling the pod bit by bit. Elnor moved instinctively closer to Hugh, not wanting to accidentally be in the way when two pieces of metal settled together. “In any cube, there would only be reason for a queen to escape, really, although maybe some Borg were programmed to save themselves in the event of a disaster. Scout drones weren’t.” He scowled down at the PADD in his hand, stabbing at the screen repeatedly while a tiny little <i>brrrt</i> noise sounded, over and over. He sighed and rubbed his forehead, and then finally met Elnor’s eyes. “Was there something you needed me for?”</p><p>Elnor opened his mouth, then closed it. Then said, “It isn’t urgent. I only wanted to...talk.”</p><p>“About what?”</p><p>“You seem troubled by whatever you heard while you were at Coppelius Station.”</p><p>Hugh made a low noise in his throat. “Yes, I suppose that’s one way to put it. I’m very <i>troubled</i>.” He reached out, pressed his hand against the wall in front of him, until the ship seemed to recognize him, an unseen panel lighting up. He took hold of it and yanked; it popped free, exposing a mass of wires and blinking lights that he stuck his hand into, beginning to tinker. Elnor watched in mystified interest. “I’m also <i>annoyed</i>, <i>frustrated</i>, and <i>pissed off</i>, but who’s counting?”</p><p>Watching Hugh awkwardly cradle the PADD and the wall panel in the hand he didn’t have inside the bulkhead, Elnor stepped close and took them gently, flashing Hugh a little smile. Hugh blinked at him, then smiled back briefly before getting both hands into the work. “I wasn’t expecting them to be singing my praises, exactly, but I wasn’t...quite ready for the welcome I did receive.” He shook his head, knocking back a lock of hair that had fallen into his eyes. He still looked tired, and worn, and—with his sleeves pushed up and hair falling loose—a little like he was starting to fray at the edges. “And then to come back and have to—” He cut his eyes sideways at Elnor, then looked back into the access panel, mouth pressed into a thin line.</p><p>“What?” Elnor said, pouncing immediately. “Have to what?” When Hugh didn’t answer, Elnor frowned, looked around the sphere as, finally, whatever Hugh had been repairing seemed to get things moving again, and the last few sections of the escape pod settled into place with an echoing, final-sounding <i>clang</i>. “Hugh...why are you repairing this pod? Did...has the Federation told you they will not come for you?” Mounting outrage tightened his voice. Would they leave Hugh and all the xBs here, alone, on this alien world? “Captain Rios’ ship, it...it cannot hold many, but. We won’t leave you here—”</p><p>Hugh blinked at him in surprise. Then he huffed a tired laugh, shook his head. “No...no. It’s not like that, Elnor, but...” He regarded Elnor for a moment, eyes suddenly focused and assessing. “I appreciate you thinking of us.” Turning back to the panel a moment, he made a final adjustment, then took the cover plate back and replaced it. “Admiral Picard asked me to get the ship’s defenses up and running. This is part of that. When the Romulan fleet arrives, this ship will make it a little harder for them to reach Coppelius.”</p><p>“You...you’re going to fly this ship? Against <i>two hundred Warbirds</i>?”</p><p>Hugh’s smile was brittle. “Not just me. I’m sure Captain Rios won’t be sitting this one out.”</p><p>“Hugh,” Elnor said, outrage turning to fear. “You can’t. You’ll—it’s impossible. You’ll be killed. You almost died last time, just piloting the cube”</p><p>“I have many character flaws, Elnor, but a death wish isn’t one of them.” He reached out and plucked his PADD back from Elnor’s limp fingers. Despite his words, he seemed very intent on the little screen, avoiding looking up at him. “It has to be me. It won't...I won't be like last time, when I connected to the Artifact. It will just be me. Not the xBs. I'll just have to fly the ship." Finally, reluctantly, he raised his eyes. "I'll be as careful as I can. But I can’t just sit here and let them come down on us. I have to—I have to help.”</p><p>“You’ve done so much already,” Elnor bit out, suddenly seeing in his memory the glint of those deadly little Zhat Vash knives. “I’m sure Picard will have Starfleet ships here, I’m sure you won’t need to go.”</p><p>“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”</p><p>“Then—then let me come with you,” Elnor blurted. Hugh’s brow furrowed, and he shook his head.</p><p>“I need you here,” he said, “looking out for them.” He jerked his chin toward the rest of the cube outside this forbidding metal bubble.</p><p>“But I’m supposed to be protecting you.”</p><p>Something flickered across Hugh’s face. “I thought it was my cause you were sworn to,” he said, quieter.</p><p>Elnor felt his ears heat. “You and your cause are one and the same,” he rallied. “If you die in a firefight with the Tal Shiar, what will become of them?”</p><p>The softness in Hugh’s face hardened again. He tapped a last something into his PADD, and the cables connecting him to the pod disengaged, making his body jerk as they retracted. He closed up the computer terminal in the wall and gathered a few tools scattered at his feet, pushing them into his bag. “Were you serious about swearing yourself to them, or weren’t you?”</p><p>Elnor sucked a breath between his teeth. “I never lie,” he insisted. “Especially not about that.”</p><p>“Good.” Hugh shouldered his bag, paused, and reached out to rest his hand on Elnor’s upper arm, giving him a squeeze that would’ve been surprisingly strong if Elnor hadn’t already known what Hugh was capable of. “If anything happens to me, then you’ll know what to do. I’ll make sure of it. And you won’t be alone. The Admiral wouldn’t just abandon you.”</p><p>Elnor pursed his mouth, worry knotting his stomach. “I can’t be sure of that.”</p><p>That seemed really to take Hugh aback. He gave Elnor a strange look. “Well,” he mused, smiling for some reason. “That’ll be something to unpack when I get back tomorrow.”</p><p>“And you <i>will</i> come back,” Elnor said flatly, following Hugh away from the strange escape ship, back toward more familiar areas of the Artifact, inasmuch as any part of this place felt familiar.</p><p>Hugh glanced back at him over his shoulder, then lagged to fall into step beside him instead of walking two steps ahead. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I still have work to do.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The next morning, Elnor halfheartedly helped a few xBs, who certainly knew the needs of the Artifact better than he did, to inventory some of the equipment that the Romulans had left behind. Worry and fear gnawed at him; he knew what was coming for them and was powerless to do anything about it except stay busy. He tried not to let his nerves show, but after a while realized that he was making his work crew nervous. The glances of dark eyes, some curious, others wary, from a half-dozen different species filled him with guilt; he was strung tight with nerves when the proximity alarms started sounding, terrifying and all at once.</p><p><i>Hugh,</i> he thought, frantically, and tore out of the cargo bay, heading further down into the ship. Some half-formed idea of stopping Hugh from going on this suicide mission, that it was Elnor’s responsibility to save him from it, filled his head as he ran. He hadn’t gotten far when Hugh’s voice cracked icy against his conscience: <i>“Were you serious about swearing yourself to them, or weren’t you?”</i> It was not fair that Hugh should have to take this on himself, but living was very rarely fair, or just. If it were, Elnor knew, there would be little need for people like the Qowat Milat.</p><p>He stopped, panting, hand pressed to the wall beside him, through which he could feel a deep rumbling vibration beginning, somewhere far away in the ship. He remembered how it had felt to be strapped down and cut into, and how the ship had come to life around him in a way it was never supposed to do again. All through the force of Hugh’s will. He alone could pilot the escape ship, he alone had been able to wrest control of the Artifact—and the lives of every xB on it—away from the Tal Shiar. He would do whatever was necessary to protect them; he wasn’t capable of doing otherwise.</p><p>Elnor set his jaw, turned, and ran instead toward the telemetry station. As the Artifact shuddered and roared around him, he rounded the corner into the darkened room. The exterior sensor display was filled with what at first looked like an unfamiliar starfield...which Elnor then realized, horrified, was the holographic representation of over two hundred Romulan ships in almost claustrophobic formation, an arrow pointed straight at the planet. And there, rising through the lower atmosphere, the single tiny bright point of light that was the escape pod, not fleeing, but engaging.</p><p>No—not a single point. There was another rising right behind it, its course erratic, but clear. Identification information scrolled up the display, not much of it making sense to Elnor, but he could determine it was <i>La Sirena</i>. He watched its light dance circles around Hugh’s straight, steady trajectory; the holographic display made it all seem surreal and detached, like it was only a holofilm, not something that was actually happening. Their ships were just a few pixels in the air, and these other pixels here—these many, many others—were not really innumerable enemies. Just light.</p><p>But his heart throbbed heavy and sick in his chest, his fingers gripping bloodlessly onto the edge of the control panel as he tried not to shake, tried not to lose hope. His spirits lifted for a moment when he saw three more shapes rising up from the planet: reinforcements, the orchid ships that had initially brought the Artifact and <i>La Sirena</i> crashing down. And then all hell broke loose.</p><p>The fleet opened fire first; the presence of the orchids must have been enough to tip the balance of hostilities. The shapes of those flowing alien ships winked out quickly. The Borg ship, however, lay a path of destruction through the center of the fleet, clearing space and disrupting their formation. Zipping between and picking off enemy craft here and there wove Rios’ tough little ship, its captain as brave and foolhardy as Hugh. Elnor couldn’t breathe as he watched, hoping, mouth forming silent words, a litany of prayer.</p><p>He gradually became aware of...others, there in the room with him—xBs, a group of them at the door, venturing just inside, also watching the horrible display but not coming near, clearly reading Elnor’s distress. His breath caught; they had as much, more, to lose here. They were the ones who knew Hugh, after all, who perhaps loved him. Did they know he’d gone? That he was up above them, now, protecting them all? That...this was what they all watched now? He knew even as he wondered that they did. They understood better than he did what was at stake. A part of him wanted to reach out to them, take and receive comfort, even though he wasn’t sure he deserved that. He had let Hugh go out there alone, and in this moment, Elnor felt very, very alone, too.</p><p>Little lights in that enemy starfield blinked out on the screen. But not enough. And not fast enough. As Elnor and the others all watched, helpless, the points of light closed around the Borg ship like a swarm of insects, the damage output only visible as numbers on the screen, a quiet build to the end of Hugh's life. </p><p>The sphere ship shuddered out of existence in the same instant that hundreds of <i>La Sirenas</i> flooded the map.</p><p>Elnor watched in cold dread as the pixels dissolved, still feeling detached from the reality. But it was rushing in fast. For the briefest flicker of a second, his worst, most selfish thought was that if he were an xB, at least he might have felt Hugh die. And that would be...something. Instead, he just felt numb as the little blips that indicated the <i>La Sirenas</i> also all simultaneously winked out. A malfunction of the display? Perhaps, but the screen going bright with hundreds of different, new ships was most definitely not. He didn’t understand what he was seeing, but in the next moments, the enemy fire stopped, and <i>La Sirena</i> floated there, alone, between the two ranged fleets and the planet where a few dozen synthetic lifeforms and a few thousand xBs, equally outcast, huddled and hoped for a miracle.</p><p>Elnor turned to all the other souls in the room and thought, <i>What now? What next? He's gone. What would he do next? He's gone.</i></p><p>He'd look after the xBs, as he’d sworn to do. He'd make sure they were taken care of and comforted until help arrived. He'd...explain what had happened, to those who had not been here to see it for themselves. He would keep his oath.</p><p>But right this moment, he found himself the subject of a dozen piercing sets of eyes, all looking to see what he would do—some curious, many afraid, a few almost seeming to accuse. Or perhaps that was Elnor’s own conscience. He felt sick, and angry, and more than a little scared, himself. And he felt completely, utterly lost.</p><p>“I—” he began, but that was immediately, already wrong. He shook his head, hoped his voice would come out steady when he tried again. “You must be grieving. I grieve with you. Still. For all of it. For Hugh. For everyone you’ve lost.” No, his voice wasn’t very steady at all, it turned out. “I don’t know what is going to happen, or what waits ahead for you. But. I am here. I am not going to leave you. I...I promised Hugh I would help you however I could.”</p><p>There was no reply from any of them, though he knew two or three of the faces, knew they were capable of speaking. They simply watched him, as if waiting for something. His throat was dry and his eyes wet. He had no other words to say. He felt hollowed out inside. But even when he’d watched the horrible deaths of his friends, even when there had seemed very little hope, Hugh had gotten up again and kept fighting. He’d taken Elnor’s hand and stood with him. Elnor could not do less than that and still call himself <i>qalankhkai</i>.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he offered, voice cracking. “I’m sorry he’s gone.” He glanced back at the viewer behind him, just in time to see the Romulan ships blipping out one by one—not destroyed, but swallowed up in hyperspace as they fled what he could now see from the display were Starfleet ships. And <i>La Sirena</i>, singular and strong. Pain lanced through Elnor’s chest, so sharp he could only catch his breath in a sob. <i>Hugh did it. He saved us.</i> The thought echoed; Elnor realized belatedly that he’d said it aloud. His voice felt rough and alien in his throat, and he couldn’t manage more than that, throat closing, tears streaking down his face.</p><p>Behind him, the others stood in their shared silence for a long moment, the room seeming to compress painfully around them all. Then, just as silently, they turned and walked out.</p><p>---</p><p>Too restless and heavy-limbed to lie down, too scattered and tearful to work, Elnor left the cube, not going far, of course, because he’d promised to stay. But he couldn’t be inside that dark and oppressive tomb a moment longer. Outside, the sun glared, shimmered off the sand and the water equally oppressively. He gulped a dry, dusty breath and turned his face up to the sky, clenching and unclenching his hands. He wanted to scream, and he wanted to weep, and he wanted very badly to go another round with that fucking Zhat Vash. Something, anything, any outlet for this horrible empty feeling. He didn’t understand it, really. In the back of his mind, he heard his mother’s voice, soft and dry as the desert wind that tugged at his hair:</p><p>
  <i>What don’t you understand? Look clearly. Look honestly.</i>
</p><p>He pressed his eyes closed. He could still see the yellowish sky, the swirls of sand in the air, behind his eyelids, but he imposed reds and ochres over them, remembering the slate-blue sky of home. It wasn’t homesickness he felt for Vashti; there was little there to be nostalgic for. But he did mourn. He missed his sisters, their chatter, their straightforwardness. He missed the food already, and he’d been gone less than a week. Imagining himself back on Vashtine sand instead of Coppelian helped him to steady his breathing, push back the hopelessness and fear so that he could look at them more clearly.</p><p>That’s what it was, he realized—in his heart, he was afraid. Terrified, actually. Being Picard’s <i>qalankhkai</i> had been simple; being Hugh’s had been different, but not harder. Follow their lead, take their energy and feed it back. Help them achieve their aims. Now he had no one to lead him or guide him, no one to show him how to proceed, and he was responsible for thousands of lives, and had no idea what to do.</p><p>
  <i>I’m afraid, mother. I don’t want to fail them now.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>And why are you certain you will fail?</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Because I don’t even know where to begin.</i>
</p><p>Breathing silence surrounded him, the quiet of a whispering world. He opened his eyes again. Where to begin. Hugh was gone (<i>gone, and he hadn’t protected him</i>) and the xBs needed an advocate. Elnor could never be their leader as Hugh had been, could never be to them what he was. He wasn’t one of them. But he could fight. He could speak, loudly when necessary. The first thing, the first thing he needed to do was to make sure they had a safe way off this world. They couldn’t stay here, living in a half-submerged and shipwrecked Borg cube, forever. He needed to make sure Hugh’s friends knew they were alright, that they’d survived and needed help.</p><p>They needed to know who hadn’t made it, too.</p><p>The responsibility hung heavily around his heart. But it was a place to start. He took a few more deep breaths of hot air, dug his toes into the familiar give and shift of sand. Then he made himself turn and walk back inside that dark place, heading unerringly to the office in which he’d seen Hugh working two days ago. He sat before the terminal Hugh had used. It was dormant, but there on top of the control panel was a scrap of paper beneath a heavy, fist-sized hunk of silvery rock; thin scrawl spelled out an access code. Elnor’s heart raced. Simply touching the control panel caused the lights and display to come up; when he input the password, the system switched views, to a folder full of files. On the very top was an audio clip, labeled <i>For Elnor</i>.</p><p>Hand shaking, Elnor tapped it.</p><p>The sound of fabric rustling, the soft clearing of a throat, filled the darkened space. Elnor leaned in, straining for every sound; Hugh’s voice, when it came, was soft and rough, tired as he’d seemed every moment to be while Elnor knew him. Elnor wondered if that was really how he always was, or if it was just the stress of every terrible thing that had happened after Picard arrived on the Artifact that had weighed him down. He wondered what Hugh had sounded like before all this, whether he always had reason to be so weary and angry, or if he had good days, too. Happier ones. He hoped so. He hoped Hugh had been happy. He hoped Hugh had known he was saving their lives, that he hadn’t died thinking he’d failed.</p><p>
  <i>“This is...a very strange message to be recording.” A soft laugh. “I don’t want to get too overdramatic, or anything; with any luck, you won’t even have to listen to it. No one will. But, a few notable occasions aside, I’ve never been very lucky. So I feel like I should take the precaution. And...admittedly, I’ve had a little to drink.” A pause. The soft clink of glass on glass. “I regret that—if you’re listening to this, Elnor...I’ve just realized I don’t even know your whole name. Just Elnor, come from nowhere to swoop in and rescue me. Sword and all, just missing the shining armor. I regret I can’t tell you any of this in person, Elnor. That I’m not there to do my job, and help you do what I suppose is now yours. I knew it was a possibility when I made the decision to use the escape ship—a probability, even—that I wouldn’t come back. I wouldn’t leave the xBs for anything less than the chance to save their lives. You have to know that. They are the most important thing to me, the reason I’m still alive. Giving that up for them will be a small sacrifice to make, if only to give them a chance at safety.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Bringing them here was a mistake. But there are few places in this galaxy where being an xB is not a bad move. At least here, Picard and the Federation can no longer ignore us. I know I’ve left them, and you, in a bad spot, but. It probably is not as bad as it would have been if I were still there. The rest of the files in this folder are all about the Borg Reclamation Project: dossiers on the xBs, research from our doctors and therapists, lots of data we’d only started making sense of. Four years’ worth of work, everything we had. As well as all the information you’ll need to get in touch with my contacts on Earth. I have friends there who you can trust to help you. You won’t be totally on your own.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Another huff of laughter, more resigned-sounding than amused. “Maybe I’m just telling you that to make myself feel better. It’s a lot I’m asking you to do. Too much. But...well, I looked up the Qowat Milat. If you are what you say you are, then there’s no one else I’d choose to protect them. And at this point, Elnor, you’re all they have left here in this horrible place. All I have left. I wanted more for them all, wanted to be able to give them more. More time, more security. A better start to their new lives than I had. I have to trust you, now, to give them that. I don’t trust very easily, but. I don’t know. I have a good feeling about you. A fool’s hope, maybe. Either way, I’m grateful to you for being here for me and for them. I trust you’ll find your way.”</i>
</p><p>There were a few seconds more of soft, breathing silence, and then the recording cut out, and Elnor was left in the dim light of the computer terminal with tears on his cheeks once again. This time he let himself cry, for a long time, head on his arms, slumped over Hugh’s desk, less sure than ever before in his life that he could do what had been asked of him.</p><p>But when he’d spent his fear and his regret, what was left, weary, but concrete, was the determination to <i>try</i>. Hugh had trusted him to, after all—and this was what he’d sworn to do. He raised his head and scrubbed at his face. Then he began to read everything in the file Hugh had left for him, even the documents that didn’t make any sense to him, medical reports and therapy notes and inventories of technology extracted from the bodies of men and women who were now left to figure out who they were without it. The language of these reports was gratingly clinical; the more he read, the more he understood what words like <i>excised</i> and <i>disconnected</i> and <i>deactivated</i> really meant. He couldn’t help but think of the scarred faces and missing limbs, the intelligent but distant eyes dark in ashen faces, the crumpled bodies scattered like ragdolls on the ground under the lingering scent of scorched flesh.</p><p><i>No more,</i> he thought; then, aloud, murmured, “No more.” He wanted it known, said: he wasn’t going to let this happen to them again.</p><p>It was hours later when he finished reading. His eyes felt gritty from crying and staring at the computer screen; his body ached from sitting in one position for so long. But inside, he was perfectly, completely calm, his regret and self-doubt locked carefully away, for now, where they couldn’t get in the way of what needed to be done.</p><p>Hugh’s files did indeed list the names of the people he’d said to contact. Elnor drafted a message to them, as polite and thorough but succinct as he could make it: Hugh was lost when the Romulan fleet arrived at Coppelius, I am his designated representative for the surviving xBs on the Artifact, we are safe for now but need to confirm Hugh's arrangement for transport back to earth for a few dozen independent survivors and a few thousand more beings in stasis. He added their coordinates and Hugh’s voice message, in case they needed confirmation of his authority—such as it was—though he hesitated a moment, feeling strangely protective of the audio file, as though sending it to anyone else to hear was somehow breaking a confidence. Or perhaps it was just jealousy; Hugh had been his <i>rrhadam</i>, his oath-holder, for however short a time, and he’d left this communication for Elnor in the event of his death—a thing that should never have happened, a wrong-thing. A failure. No <i>qalankhkai’s</i> oath-holder was ever supposed to die while their <i>qalankhkai</i> lived. But Elnor was here, and Hugh was not, and he felt selfishly proprietary over every scrap of proof that Hugh had been here, had once been <i>his</i>.</p><p>That was foolish. He shook his head, attached the file, then hesitated a moment, frowning. It was foolish to be proprietary about Hugh’s message, yes, but...was the message really enough, he wondered? The people on this list would know nothing of him, but he recognized two of the names: Dr. Beverly Crusher and Commander Geordi La Forge. Admiral Picard had spoken of them fondly to Elnor years ago, particularly of Dr. Crusher. He wasn’t hesitant to contact them, but why should they even listen to a message from a stranger using Hugh’s contact credentials? He could be anyone. Might they not have more reason to open a message from the admiral himself? Hugh had told him to look to Admiral Picard for help, and this was help he could most definitely provide.</p><p>When he tried to raise Coppelius station, however, there was no answer. Worry squeezed his heart, his premonition from yesterday of never seeing Picard again looming dark in his mind. But it had only been a feeling. The xBs were real, and he needed as much help to provide for them as he could get. After several unsuccessful attempts to contact them, he wearily saved his message to the Federation and closed it, then went to gather the xBs. </p><p>The entire group of them numbered fewer than fifty. There had been perhaps seventy-five of them before the Tal Shiar turned on them, before the crash. Before, Elnor thought guiltily, he and Admiral Picard had arrived and disrupted their lives and their home. Now the ones who were left gathered in the bunk room with him, some of them groggily just waking up, others weary from a day of work and of mindlessly occupying themselves on a ship with few opportunities for occupation. By this point, the cube mostly repaired itself, but there was only so much it would be able to fix. It would never be whole again; even if it were, it would never leave the ground. There was less and less for the xBs to do, but Coppelius was not a friendly enough world for them to explore it yet. More than ever, the Artifact was becoming a place where they were trapped. Elnor certainly sympathized.</p><p>“I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to properly meet most of you yet,” he told them, holding himself up straight and tall and trying to strike a tone that was more than conversational but less than authoritative. The last thing he wanted was to seem as though he was putting himself over them, trying to take control; they’d had a lifetime’s worth of bad experiences with Romulans in positions of power already. They would only be able to trust him if he proved himself trustworthy. “I think most of you know me, though, from...your connection with Hugh. My name is Elnor, and I was Hugh’s—I was helping Hugh after he took control of the Artifact.”</p><p>Mention of Hugh’s name earned a variety of downcast eyes, pained expressions. Here and there, an xB made some gesture or other, most of which Elnor didn’t understand. But one human woman, clearly further along in her healing than most of the others from the state of her scars and the thatch of thick, dark hair curling around her ears, touched her forehead, chest, and both shoulders in a sign he did recognize. They were grieving, making remembrance in whatever way they knew. Understanding that, he pressed his palms together and bowed low to the group of them, unfolding his hands like opening a book. It was the only sign he had; it didn’t begin to encompass his emotions, but it would have to do.</p><p>“I suppose you all know, now. Hugh took the escape pod from this ship to defend us against the Romulan fleet that was pursuing us. He helped save all our lives today, and he gave his own to do it.” He took a breath, let it out. “I did not know him as well as you did, and I regret that. I regret...much of what has happened here over the past few days. But I grieve with you, for Hugh, for all your friends who have been lost. I’m sorry they are gone.”</p><p>He looked from face to face. A young Orion man, his arms crossed over the too-big shift that hung over his rangy figure, canted his chin up at Elnor as their eyes met. “What do we do now?” he said, in a low, rough voice, something like challenge in the set of his jaw. “Are we going to be stuck here?”</p><p>Elnor recognized him from his dossier—one of the more complete ones in Hugh’s files—but that was an unfair advantage. “Can I ask your name?” he said, smiling encouragingly.</p><p>“Corvus,” the Orion told him. “And I’ve already been on this cube two years trying to get off of it. I don’t want to stay here anymore.”</p><p>“You won’t have to much longer,” Elnor replied, glad to be able to assure them of this much, at least. “Before he left, Hugh gave me instructions to contact the Federation and ask them to send a ship for us. This place...it was not meant to be your home. There is a settlement nearby, and if you wish to stay, I think the people who live there would let you. But if you want to wait for the transport, it will be here soon to take you back to Earth. I’ll be going with you, to make sure you all get home safely.”</p><p>“Earth is not home,” said another voice, familiar. The group parted a bit, and the small, young, high-voiced xB who had spoken to him two nights ago shouldered their way out to the front. Determination lit their one ultramarine eye. “Why should we go there, instead of anywhere else?”</p><p>“It is the place I know now that you will be safest,” Elnor offered. “Hugh has—had friends there. But once we’re there, I will help you find transport somewhere else, if you would like to go. I won’t make any of you stay with us against your will. I don’t believe Hugh would have done that, either.” Belatedly, he nodded at the young xB. “I haven’t asked your name yet, either.”</p><p>“I haven’t chosen one yet,” they replied with a shrug. “But I promised Hugh I would tell him first when I had decided. I will tell you, instead, if I choose one.”</p><p>Elnor nodded. “Thank you,” he replied, and felt probably more gratified than he should have, when the young person smiled back at him, fleetingly.</p><p>“How long until we leave?” Corvus interjected. “Can we go visit this settlement, in the meantime?”</p><p>“I’m not sure exactly how long until the transport can get here,” Elnor admitted. “At least a week, and probably a little longer. I will tell you all everything I know, and try to get more information as often as I can. I know that...doesn’t help very much. I am still trying to learn some of the things that Hugh knew. But yes, we will visit Coppelius Station. I have friends there who can help me contact the Federation, but I’m having trouble reaching them now. The station is a few hours’ walk through the desert, and I still don’t know how dangerous this world is. Tomorrow I will try to contact my friends again to bring us a vehicle. Anyone who wants to go is welcome to come. Does that sound alright?”</p><p>Corvus watched him a moment, then nodded; there were nods from some of the other xBs, too, as well as the continued, strangely unblinking stare some of them had—not unfocused or vacant, as they were clearly watching him, clearly thinking, but inhumanly even and steady in a way that put Elnor in mind of statues and paintings. It was unsettling, but not maliciously meant, he knew. Many of the xBs seemed not quite organic in the way they moved and regarded their world; it was just their nature, he decided. He was sure some of his quirks and habits seemed just as alien to them; he’d been told more than once that he stared a little too intensely, too.</p><p>Elnor nodded back. “If any of you need anything, tell me. I want to help you. That’s what I’m here for, but I’m...I know I won’t be able to take Hugh’s place. I don’t know you as he did. But I’d like to.” He gave them a smile. It wasn’t really returned, but that was to be expected. Perhaps they would get there, eventually, and if they never did, he would still be there for them, however they needed. If he could make a difference for even one of them, it would be worth it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p><i>rrhadam</i> is something else i made up, out of Rihan "rrh-", meaning "keep, foster, or hold," and "rhadam," meaning "person." the idea is that this is a Qowat Milat-specific term for the other half of a relationship with a <i>qalankhai</i>: the "oath-holder." this word wouldn't have any meaning except in this context, since it literally just means "holder" or "keeper."</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The wind kicked up overnight; Elnor was dimly aware of it as he slept, whistling and resonating mournfully through the cracked cube, unsettling his dreams and filling them with ghosts. He saw his mothers’ faces, his real mother and Mother Zani’s, his father’s, Admiral Picard’s, Hugh’s. They were distorted, crying out in pain, slipping into impenetrable black just beyond his reach. He woke exhausted and sweating, reaching out for them, arm outstretched toward the ceiling high above his upper bunk, from beyond which came the distant howling of a sandstorm. When he made his way to the ground level of the ship, he saw the world outside was almost as dark as night with thick clouds of dust and debris covering the sun; fine particles of it hung in the air inside the cube, choking him, and sand drifted against the opening in the side of the Artifact, almost deep enough to seal them in. He and the others spent hours off and on throughout the day shifting sand from the entryway to keep it clear. The wind didn’t abate all that day and the next, reaching a screaming pitch that echoed down to Elnor’s bones, making it impossible to sleep the next night, impossible to concentrate on anything. It frightened some of the xBs, and even Elnor found it put him on edge after unrelenting hours of noise. He took them into the deepest, most central parts of the ship, but even there, the wind could be heard howling elsewhere in the Artifact, roving through the maze of corridors like a pack of hunting animals.</p><p>The storm also completely disabled their communications array. Corvus and another of the xBs, an engineer named Fourth of Twelve who had been monitoring the ship’s self-regeneration, thought it likely the winds had damaged the equipment they’d only just fixed. They wouldn’t even be able to go check it until the storm had died down. Elnor knew deadly desert conditions when he saw them.</p><p>He didn’t intend to fall asleep in the midst of the knot of xBs who huddled together in the heart of the ship. He had been talking softly with the woman he had comforted two nights ago; she <i>could</i> speak, as it turned out, though she did not have a great deal of language, yet, and her grief still choked what few words she had. He sat beside her where she was curled up, knees to her chest, amid several dozen people struggling to rest in the center of a moaning vortex of wind and metal, and listened to her speak haltingly of her friend who had died, remembering the color of her eyes, the curve of her ruined smile, the way she used to sing, one of the few xBs so far to have gotten music back. Elnor was surprised how well he could imagine her, this person he had never met, just from the way her friend smiled brokenly when she spoke of her face and her voice, love and despair intermixed. He wiped tears from his eyes and held her hand as her words trailed off into fitful sleep; the next thing he knew, he was opening his own eyes in the perpetual greenish semi-twilight of the interior of the Artifact. He lay loosely curved around the woman, with another xB curled at his back, the group of them holding together a pocket of hushed breathing and body heat. It was the first time, he realized, he’d been warm inside the cube. Above and around them, the wind was finally silent.</p><p>They dug themselves out of the sand as the sun rose in a crystal-clear sky, heaps of the golden stuff now clogging every opening in the Artifact, glittering in the dawnlight. Elnor couldn’t believe how beautiful the sky looked after the storm, scrubbed raw and new and brilliant white-gold, purple clouds scudding away the only sign there had ever been a storm at all. Even the temperature had dropped to something more comfortable, which was lucky, because their comms equipment <i>was</i> damaged again, and there was nothing for it but to climb back up and spend the rest of the day scooping sand out of each of the sensors one by one with fingers increasingly raw and aching.</p><p>He looked up at one point and saw the little one-eyed xB with no name watching him intently with that unmoving, unblinking stare. They were perched astride a sensor dish, cleaning it off with a canister of air. “What is that you’re singing?” they asked him, and Elnor blinked in surprise.</p><p>“I...I didn’t know I was singing,” he admitted, sheepish. It took him a moment to remember what had been running around in his mind. He had been thinking, he recalled, how sad it was that most of the xBs did not yet remember any songs, or how to sing them, which had made him achingly homesick for the chapterhouse, for his sisters and how they always sang as they worked. Nothing could make cleaning or laundry feel less like the boring chores they were, but singing full-voiced ridiculous or bawdy songs with the others did make the time seem to go faster, most days.</p><p>“It’s about a great battle,” he told the blue-eyed xB, the shape of the words in his mouth jogging his memory. “About the ones who die heroically, and remembering them.” He flushed a little, frowning at himself. He didn’t have to wonder where inspiration for <i>that</i> had come from. “I’m sorry—I don’t mean to be morbid. I didn’t realize I was doing it.”</p><p>“No,” the xB said, leaning a little further forward over the lip of the dish, looking eager. “I like it. Keep singing it?”</p><p>Elnor hesitated, looked around at the others on top of the Artifact with them; some of them were watching him back, others seemed not to notice he had spoken at all. But he had the sense that all were listening. He cleared his throat a little, suddenly self-conscious, but then he began to sing again from the beginning. It was meant to be sung in more than one voice, called and responded to, but it was easy enough to sing both parts himself: about a great victory of the Qowat Milat over the Tal Shiar, thousands of years ago now, a battle for the soul of the Romulan people and the wellspring of their unending feud. Hostilities between their two factions had long since settled into a cold conflict carried out through subterfuge and assassination, but neither side had forgotten the great open warfare they had once carried out upon each other. This was a song meant to remember the fallen, valorize their sacrifice, made in the name of all the people of Romulus, in a time in which that was the only planet they had to call home. Those ancient Qowat Milat had bound their swords en masse to a final, fatal push against their enemy, and none survived on either side; the song followed their spirits as they cast the spectral deceivers from their world and into the cold abyss that bounded the planet. Then the ghosts of the warriors returned home to see their sisters once more before lying down to rest forever.</p><p>It was suitably melodramatic for the minds of children eager for an escape from the drudgery of mopping. It felt strange to sing it alone, in a language few if any of the others here understood, as if he were a performer for an audience, rather than one of a group. But by the third refrain, the young xB was humming along with the responses as he sang them, and by the fifth they had memorized the sounds well enough to sing along during the last two choruses. Some of the others had started to hum too, so Elnor went back and began again, to give them more opportunity to stretch their voices. He was smiling by the time they’d sung through again, and his eyes were cloudy with tears. He wasn’t sure why; he felt calmer now than he had in days.</p><p>By the time the sun went down, they still hadn’t totally completed their repairs to the communications equipment. He wondered futilely how often these sandstorms occurred on Coppelius; he remembered Soji saying that this planet was often wracked by storms. If their systems were going to be knocked out every third day, these repairs were going to become tiring—if not impossible, once they started losing bits and pieces they couldn’t replicate. He told the others that he would contact Coppelius Station the next day once they’d finished fixing the system, to try to finally arrange that transport for them.</p><p>When, later that evening, he was awakened by the young nameless xB climbing onto his bunk and, trembling, curling up beside him, he didn’t even think to question them. He only draped his blanket over them both and tucked himself carefully around their much-smaller frame. He was half again as tall, their body seeming dwarfed in the curve of his, and their shivering slowly subsided as both of them settled again, breathing evening out into sleep.</p><p>---</p><p>The weather was not as beautiful and cooperative the next morning; the scorching heat had returned, and it was windy again, although nothing like it had been during the storm—just enough to blow grit into his eyes and mouth and hair as he and Corvus fought with the last of the repairs on top of the Artifact. Corvus, who was not as tall as Elnor but was broader in the shoulders, sweated through his shirt in the melting sun, shaking as he struggled to hold up a heavy access panel for Elnor to clean the insides of the compartment below, every inch of it crusted in sand. Elnor had abandoned his own shirt entirely, spreading it under him to protect himself from the blistering hot metal as he lay on his belly with both his arms down inside the compartment, air canister in one hand and stiff-bristled brush in the other.</p><p>Corvus suddenly swore. “I’m losing it,” he snapped, panicked edge in his voice; Elnor only barely had time to snatch his arms back and roll aside before the panel slipped out of Corvus’ slick hands and came crashing back down with a threatening <i>clang</i>. He crumpled to the deck, panting, as Elnor lay staring up at the colorless sky, heart pounding. The two of them met each other’s eyes and simultaneously dissolved in giddy laughter that took a full minute to get under control.</p><p>“There are...easier ways to...get rid of me,” Elnor gasped between giggles, levering himself up onto his elbows and pushing back flyaway hair from his face, unsticking it from the sweat on his temples. “Less messy.”</p><p>“Yes,” Corvus agreed, shaking his head and grinning. His face was scarred in a way that reminded him of Hugh’s, Elnor had observed: almost bisected by a long scar, pale greyish in his dark green-skinned face, but where Hugh had a prosthetic eye, the Orion had only knotted scar tissue and regenerated flesh, like most of the other xBs who had had optical implants removed. His big, gap-toothed smile, however, was no less bright for his scars. “But not very many that would look quite so much like an accident.”</p><p>“Ah, I see,” Elnor mused, brushing caked-on sand off his arms and shoulders, rolling up onto his knees. “That’s very smart, but I don’t think anyone would—”</p><p>His voice trailed off as his eyes caught on movement and a flash of light out over the dunes. He squinted, standing and peering out over the edge of the cube. It looked like a vehicle of some kind was headed their way from the direction of Coppelius Station.</p><p>“What is it?” Corvus asked, coming to stand next to him. He made a surprised noise in his throat as he caught sight of the movement. “Are they coming from the settlement?”</p><p>Elnor nodded, dusting off his hands and gathering up the few tools he’d brought with him, tying them up in his shirt and tucking the bundle under his belt for a makeshift bag. “They must’ve decided to come check on us after the storm,” he reasoned, heart lifting a little. He was looking forward to seeing the others again, hoping that Admiral Picard was alright and knowing they’d have news of him. It was, in a way, just nice to remember that there was life and civilization outside the derelict cube—that he and the xBs weren’t completely alone on this windblasted world. He hoped the others had all come through the storm alright.</p><p>He and Corvus swung themselves down onto the ladder they used to scale the uneven side of the Artifact. By the time they’d reached the ground, he could hear the machine whine of the approaching landskimmer as it crested the ridge descending toward the water in which the Artifact lay partially submerged. He could see now there were several figures in the skimmer; the bald head in the pilot’s seat he recognized immediately, bringing a smile to his face—</p><p>—that froze in place as he saw the others more clearly. Admiral Picard piloted the craft to a stop nearby, engine cycling down, and beside him in the front of the skimmer sat Hugh.</p><p>Next to him, Elnor felt Corvus go very still. Blinking hard, Elnor was sure for a moment that the heat must be playing tricks on his eyes. But the Admiral, and Raffi, and Agnes all climbed out of the skimmer, Agnes waving to Elnor and Raffi hanging back to give Hugh a hand out too; he seemed to be favoring one leg, but otherwise looked no different than he had when Elnor had last spoken to him the night before the battle, the rest of the Artifact silent and sleeping around them as they parted for the evening, Elnor resigned, Hugh grimly determined.</p><p>“Hey, there!” Agnes called out, at which Hugh looked up at them, met his eyes. Elnor didn’t even know he was going to move until he already was, running flat-out across the sand, thundering heart quaking his insides. He collided with Hugh, throwing his arms around him and picking him clean up off his feet, just for a moment; Elnor thought at first Hugh was shaking, then realized it was him.</p><p>Hugh was saying something Elnor couldn’t hear, the pounding of his pulse too loud in his ears, his breath coming too fast and short. He squeezed Hugh tighter, pressing his face to his shoulder and gulping air, and finally felt Hugh’s arms come up around him, fingers curling against the sun-warmed skin of his back, and squeeze him in return, almost bruisingly tight.</p><p>“I’m alright,” Hugh was saying, over and over, Elnor finally realized. “I’m okay, Elnor. I’m alright.”</p><p>“I thought you’d died,” he replied, and didn’t recognize his own quaking voice. “I <i>saw</i> you die!”</p><p>“The Admiral beamed me out,” Hugh said, his breath ruffling the sweat-damp hair over Elnor’s ear. “Right at the last moment.” He held Elnor tighter still, just for a moment, then said, quieter, “You were watching?”</p><p>“On the, the—sensors, on the Artifact, I saw it, the battle, it was…” Elnor trailed off, realizing he had no idea what he was even saying, or wanted to say. He didn’t really want to say anything at all. Hugh was <i>alive</i>. It hit him, then, in all its reality: he didn’t have to wish and hope that Hugh knew he’d succeeded in saving them all. He <i>did</i> know, because he’d lived. Elnor’s eyes stung and his breath stuck in his throat, and he wasn’t sure if he was about to burst into laughter or tears. “<i>You’re alright.</i>”</p><p>“I’m alright,” Hugh murmured once more, and Elnor could feel him smiling against the sensitive tip of his ear. And he realized he was smiling, too, so hard it hurt his face, but he couldn’t stop. Finally, he made himself pull away, hands still lingering on Hugh’s shoulders, steadying him, taking stock. He looked Hugh up and down; he was no longer wearing the silvery-black uniform he’d worn aboard the Artifact—probably it had been ruined in the battle—and was now in plain black pants and a grey short-sleeved shirt, looking very like the other humans in the group, in their Earth clothes, soft and relaxed. Otherwise, though, he looked exactly the same, down to the tired circles under his eyes and the wry tilt of his mouth as he regarded Elnor in kind. Whatever he saw must have pleased him, because he smiled broadly when their eyes met again. “What were you doing up there?” He glanced sideways, and his expression went surprised. “Corvus!”</p><p>“We were working on the communications array again,” Corvus answered stiffly, holding himself rigid, dark eye intent on Hugh. “The storm damaged it. We were going to message…” He looked around at the newcomers, briefly, but then his attention snapped back to Hugh. “We didn’t feel you,” he said roughly, after a moment. “We saw your ship be destroyed. But we couldn’t feel whether you were alive or dead.”</p><p>Hugh’s face fell. He slipped out of Elnor’s hands, which seemed to buzz in his absence, and walked up to Corvus. Of the two of them, in that moment, it was impossible to tell who looked more lost. Hugh settled his hand on Corvus’ arm, and Corvus’ breath hitched once, and then he seemed almost to crumple in on himself in palpable relief. He put his own hand on Hugh’s shoulder, his smile blinding, and Elnor could see Hugh’s eyes glittering. He turned away, his own heart aching with joy and some emotion he couldn’t name, shivering at the edges; he found the Admiral’s eyes on him, Agnes’ on Corvus and Hugh. Raffi was rifling around in her bag industriously, though in the end she didn’t take anything out of it, only looked up at Picard when he spoke.</p><p>“Are you alright?”</p><p>Elnor noticed immediately that his voice seemed stronger and clearer than it had the last time they’d spoken. In some way, he seemed taller, too, and Elnor realized that the weight he’d seen hanging on the Admiral’s shoulders before had gone. He was again the straight, tall, statuesque figure of authority he remembered from his childhood, and it made Elnor stand a little straighter, too, even as confusion creased his brow.</p><p>“I am well,” he said. “I am glad to see you are, also—all of you,” he added, giving Agnes and Raffi a smile they both returned. “You seem better than you were when I saw you last,” he told Picard; over his shoulder, Raffi made a choked little noise into her hand that wasn’t quite a cough.</p><p>“There is a reason for that,” the Admiral replied. “But we’ll talk about it all later. Right now, I know Hugh is anxious to see how the Artifact fared in the sandstorm.”</p><p>“Everyone’s fine,” Elnor said, turning and giving Hugh a reassuring smile; Corvus was already halfway back to the ship at a jog. Hugh smiled back. “We had to work to keep the openings clear of sand, and it was hard to sleep in all the wind. But we went to the interior of the cube for shelter, and no one ventured out.” He beckoned for them all to follow, turning and falling into step beside Hugh. “I...I would like to know what it was like,” he asked Hugh, in a lower voice. “When you flew the ship. Were you hurt?”</p><p>Hugh flinched, just a little. “Some,” he replied. “It was difficult. Flying it. More difficult than I had thought it would be. And it was...really no match for the Romulans,” he added, huffing a not-quite-laugh that was heartbreakingly familiar, from the audio file Elnor had listened to a half-dozen times over the last three days. “But. I think I bought a little time for us.”</p><p>“You absolutely did,” Agnes piped up from behind them. “If it had only been us and the orchids, I’m not sure we’d have made it.”</p><p>Hugh ducked his head a little. “I’m glad it made a difference,” he replied. He looked up at Elnor sidelong. “But I am sorry to have worried you. I wasn’t in any condition to message you when they got me back to Coppelius Station, and the storm kept us from getting a clear signal. I would have made sure you knew I was coming, otherwise.” He touched Elnor’s shoulder; the warmth and gentleness of it made Elnor’s chest feel tight. “Thank you for looking after them.”</p><p>“You don’t need to thank me,” he replied, shaking his head, which was still spinning a little, either with the heat or the fact that Hugh stood beside him, now, whole and smiling. “We all looked out for each other.”</p><p>As they came back inside the Artifact, they were greeted with a small crowd, every conscious reclaimed soul moving to surround Hugh the moment they saw him. His surprised laugh and soft, reassuring voice disappeared in the murmur of their questions and exclamations, and Elnor and the others were left on the outside of a protective circle with Hugh at its center, catching people’s hands to squeeze them, hugging whomever reached for him, his smile irrepressible.</p><p>“Come with me,” Elnor said quietly to their visitors. “I’ll get you something to drink.”</p><p>With what had been the actual mess hall soaking in five feet of water on the level below them, the Artifact’s inhabitants had commandeered another space on this level for a makeshift eating area. They’d set up their replicators here and salvaged tables from wherever they could find them; it was as dismal as any other part of the cube, but fissures in the hull far overhead meant there was at least some sunlight here during the day. It slanted through the room, now, turning floating dust motes into golden columns and pooling, brilliant, on the grey floor. Elnor retrieved their drinks and brought them to the table where the others had settled; it was only here, in the coolness of the Artifact, that he realized belatedly he was still wearing no shirt. Quickly he took his from his belt, dumping his tools on another table and slipping it back on before he sat.</p><p>“Don’t dress up on our account,” Raffi teased him, grinning around the straw in her iced tea. Agnes kicked her lightly under the table, but Elnor grinned back, pulling the band out of his hair and shuffling sand out of the length of it before tying it back again.</p><p>“My mother would be disappointed in me if she saw me neglecting my manners,” he reasoned. “Besides, what is pleasant enough out in the sun gives me a chill here in this horrible cube.”</p><p>“‘Pleasant?’” Agnes said incredulously, her own pale face flushed and sheened in sweat.</p><p>“I come from a desert world,” Elnor reminded her. “Vashti is not often quite <i>this</i> hot, but most days are close. I’m used to the sand and the sun.”</p><p>Raffi sighed dramatically. “It’s cosmically unfair that you should crash land on an actual beach, sand and sun for miles, and it’s still a complete shithole.” She looked around the room a moment, not bothering to hide her distaste.</p><p>“Well, we won’t be here much longer,” Elnor said, smiling. “Hopefully soon a transport will come to take the xBs back to Earth.”</p><p>Picard’s eyebrows rose. “To Earth?”</p><p>“Hugh has friends there,” Elnor said, his smile failing; more subdued, he said, “He left me instructions to contact them, when I thought he wasn’t coming back. He said Earth will be the safest place for them, now.”</p><p>“I can only imagine what Starfleet will say to a few thousand Borg descending upon them,” the admiral muttered. “But then, they were the ones overseeing this project of Hugh’s, I suppose.”</p><p>“I don’t think they were very happy,” Elnor allowed, “but, as you say, Hugh and the xBs are their responsibility. The Tal Shiar broke the treaty. They have nowhere else to go.” He frowned thoughtfully. “I suppose they could decide to keep them here, but I hope not. It’s not a very comfortable world.”</p><p>“And I don’t know that the synths would welcome the company,” Agnes admitted. “We aren’t sure yet, exactly, how the Federation is going to respond to them, and the synths don’t trust them for much of anything. Or us, for that matter.”</p><p>“Can you blame them?” Raffi said, ticking up her eyebrows. “We <i>did</i> try to blow up their comm tower. And basically brought the Romulans right to them. If we look like bad news, maybe it’s because we are.”</p><p>“Then again,” Picard said, “they might find the xBs have more in common with them than any of us can know. If anyone can understand being feared and misunderstood, it’s these two groups.”</p><p>Agnes, frowning a little, touched his wrist. He gave her a small, fleeting smile, shaking his head. “It’s alright,” he told her, then looked at Elnor. “As it happens, I suppose I’m now in the unique position of understanding both their points of view. Hugh wasn’t the only one to have had a brush with death during our little skirmish.”</p><p>Elnor looked at him more sharply. “Are you alright?”</p><p>“I am now,” the Admiral replied. “Now that I am, in fact, my own consciousness uploaded into a synthetic body, I don’t even know if I can be anything other than ‘alright.’”</p><p>It was a moment before Elnor could manage a response to that. He rubbed at his mouth, staring at Picard in total disbelief and feeling queasy, the world knocked just slightly left of center. He couldn’t, shouldn’t be other than pleased, of course—Hugh wondrously alive, Admiral Picard...healed? “What does that mean?” he finally managed. “You’re a synth, now?”</p><p>“Effectively,” he replied, an enigmatic smile hovering around his mouth. He sipped his tea—hot, which had earned him looks of disbelief from Raffi and Agnes—and took a moment to consider his words. “My thoughts, my...mental processes are my own. But the rest of me is fabricated, thanks to Dr. Soong’s technology and Agnes’ intervention.” She smiled a touch uneasily at the recognition. “Which means that my new, synthetic brain is mercifully free of the affliction which killed me.”</p><p>“You died?” Elnor breathed.</p><p>“Very briefly,” came the genial reply. Elnor was glad he was already sitting. “When I regained consciousness, it was in this body. I have been told it will not make me live forever, but I have gotten back some of the time that was taken from me.” He looked around at the dead Artifact, eyes distant and hard, then seemed to come back to himself and half-smiled at Elnor. “For which I am grateful, however else I might feel about the arrangement.”</p><p>The rustle of many voices echoed down the hall coming toward them: the xBs all bringing Hugh with them into the only real gathering place they had. Several were talking to him at once, others saying nothing but watching him intently; the least able of them were kept safe in the knot of their peers by the others’ gentle guiding hands. Elnor stood, grateful for the distraction, and went to get Hugh some water to drink. When he caught his eye, he smiled, set it down for him on a nearby table, and Hugh mouthed his thanks before turning his attention back to the xBs.</p><p>“I didn’t imagine they’d be so happy to see him again,” Agnes murmured, watching them inquisitively.</p><p>“He's their friend, and they watched him die, the same as me,” Elnor told her. “We all thought that it was just us, now. I was afraid, and so were they.”</p><p>She looked at him then, surprised. “We would have helped you out, Elnor. You wouldn’t have been alone.”</p><p>“Thank you,” he said, reaching out to give her hand a gentle squeeze. “That means a great deal to me. But it was still my responsibility. I swore to help him, and instead I let him die.” He was clenching his fingers too tight on his drink; he made himself knot his hands together in his lap, instead.</p><p>“Elnor, I <i>asked</i> Hugh to activate the queenship,” Admiral Picard said softly. “I wanted all the defensive capability we could bring to bear. He made a very great sacrifice in taking the ship up, for which I am grateful, but it was his choice at my behest. You aren’t to blame for what happened.”</p><p>If anything, that only made Elnor feel worse; Hugh had only gone because he hadn’t felt he had a choice. Picard must really have thought they had no chance on their own, to ask Hugh to pilot a ship to defend them. He'd said it himself: he would not have left the xBs for less than life or death. Elnor struggled for a moment with his anger and frustration that Picard would have put Hugh in that position, after all the trouble they had already caused him in coming to the Artifact to search for Soji. Only knowing that Picard would not have asked if there had been any alternative kept him from speaking sharply.</p><p>“Still,” he finally said, leveling a look at the admiral that Picard seemed to understand, “I swore to look after them. Now that Hugh is back, and safe, they have a much better advocate. There is only so much I can do with a sword,” he added, lip curling up wryly.</p><p>“I’ve seen what you can do with that sword,” Raffi said, bumping him with her elbow, grinning in a way that helped dissipate the rest of Elnor’s irritation. “They were in pretty good hands.”</p><p>“What happened, in the end?” Elnor pressed, looking around at the three of them. “The Romulan fleet just. Left?”</p><p>“Oh yes—after some encouraging from our friends in Starfleet,” Admiral Picard said, clearly pleased. “They arrived just in time to bring the entire planet and her inhabitants, which I suppose includes the xBs for the time being, under Federation protection. For now, we’re as safe here as anywhere, while they decide what they’re going to do about a colony of synthetic life forms that are now their responsibility.”</p><p>“What do you think they’ll do?”</p><p>“We hope they’ll lift the restrictions on synths,” Agnes said, with an optimistic smile. “Allow them all to become Federation citizens, for their own protection. I’m sure it won’t be as simple and straightforward as that, of course.” Her smile dimmed, and she peered distantly into her drink. “Nothing about this trip has been.”</p><p>“Until they do, we can’t exactly leave,” Raffi added, pulling her horgl from one of the innumerable little hidden pockets in her vest, settling the end of it between her teeth, seemingly more for the comfort of its familiarity than a desire to actually smoke. “We wouldn't want JL's new hot rod of a body to get confiscated as soon as we leave orbit.”</p><p>“Indeed,” the Admiral replied, looking pained, though whether over Raffi’s paraphernalia or her comments, Elnor didn’t know. “For now we can only wait and see.”</p><p>“Will you all stay at Coppelius Station?” Elnor asked politely. “You’re welcome to stay here, if you’d rather…”</p><p>“<i>Nooo</i>,” Raffi said immediately. “Thanks, but they’ve got lots of room back in Synthville and...no offense, but the accommodations are a lot nicer. Matter of fact, why don’t you come back with us? You haven’t even seen the place yet. It’s really something else.”</p><p>It was a tempting offer. Elnor <i>was</i> curious to see the station, to meet the synths—well, the <i>other</i> synths, he supposed he should say, now that the admiral was...as he was. But he glanced over again to the xBs still arranged around Hugh at the other tables and on the floor, at Hugh smiling and laughing with them, the tiredness around his eyes banished as he spoke to them all, answered their questions. Elnor shook his head at his friends, gave them a grateful smile. “I will come visit before you all leave,” he assured them, “but I swore to stay with the xBs, and this is where I should be.”</p><p>Raffi frowned a little. “Wait. Do you mean stay with them for good?”</p><p>“Yes.” He raised his eyebrows at Picard. “That is, if you consent to release me from my oath to you, Admiral Picard. Soji is safe, now, and the Tal Shiar threat to her eliminated. But I believe Hugh and the xBs could still use me. They aren't in immediate danger anymore, but Hugh’s mission is far from complete.”</p><p>Picard smiled more warmly and easily now than Elnor could remember seeing since he was a child. “Have you spoken to Hugh about this?” he asked lightly.</p><p>“Only indirectly. I would like to formally swear myself to them.”</p><p>“Elnor, if that is what you truly want, then I release you from our bond, with my sincerest blessings. They will be lucky to have you helping them, though I—<i>we</i> will all be very sad to say goodbye to you.”</p><p>Elnor couldn’t repress a smile of his own, hope blossoming in his chest. Behind him, laughter rang out brightly through the sun-dappled space. “I thank you,” he said, bowing to Picard over his open palms. “And don’t worry. I will be sure to send you news whenever I can. And when the ban on synths is gone, you should come to Earth, as well, and visit us.”</p><p>Picard nodded. “I’d like that very much.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>sorry for the change in final chapter count - i ended up combining a very short chapter with a normal-sized chapter this week, because the super-short one was annoying me. :P</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Picard had satisfied himself as to Hugh and Elnor’s safety on the cube, and he, Raffi, and Agnes had gone again, with exhortations to come and visit Coppelius Station soon, Elnor felt both lighter and more anxious. He was glad to have parted on good terms with the admiral, and to have had his oath acknowledged and closed. He only hoped Hugh would still want him to stay. It was his decision, of course; Elnor hadn’t been undervaluing himself when he’d said he had little to offer beyond his ability to fight. He had other skills, but he’d never been the most talented negotiator of his sisters, nor the most technologically gifted. Besides, the xBs didn’t seem to lack for people with those skills, already. Absent an armed enemy to fight and kill, Elnor wasn’t sure, really, what he could offer them. But he did know that whatever he had to give was theirs if they wanted it. Their cause—well, not a cause, to them. To them, it was their lives. And that was an important distinction to Elnor, who remembered when his own life had been a cause to a man who had cared, sincerely, but for whom leaving Vashti behind had been an option. Watching Corvus help another, less coordinated xB to dismantle and eat the sections of a piece of fruit, seeing Hugh quietly check in on each of his people, gently touching each one, hand or shoulder or nape, kindled a fire in Elnor he had not felt in years, not since he was young and angry and lonely on a planet slowly going to pieces around him, desperate to make any difference at all.</p>
<p>He went out to finish cleaning up the communications array when the sun had gone over, a little, and was less oppressive. A threatening grey haze of stormclouds gathered on the horizon, and he wanted to get their systems back online while he still could. He only hoped they wouldn’t be immediately knocked out again. Finally, tired and caked in grime, he clambered down the side of the cube and went inside to see if that had done the trick. He almost ran bodily into Hugh, on his way out of his office. “Elnor! Looks like we have comms back—good work.”</p>
<p>Even sunsapped and feeling like he was wearing the better part of a sand dune, Elnor couldn’t help but perk up at the praise. “I’m relieved to hear you say that,” he replied. “It looks like there will be another storm tonight, although I don’t think it’s another sandstorm. If it damages the equipment again, we may need to consider another way of boosting our signal, or finding a way to shield the equipment, maybe.”</p>
<p>Hugh nodded, placing his reassuring hand on Elnor’s shoulder as Elnor had been seeing him do all day. The familiarity of it settled warm in the pit of his stomach, but in the next moment he was cringing with embarrassment when he saw a little loose dust puff up into the air from his shirt as Hugh touched it. Hugh saw it too, and laughed, withdrawing his hand and dusting it off with the other.</p>
<p>“Apologies,” Elnor told him, drawing back half a step. “I’m going to go clean up now. I just wanted to see if the equipment was working.”</p>
<p>Hugh’s smile never wavered, warm; he seemed pleased by Elnor, for some reason. “Don’t apologize. You’ve been doing dirty work out in the sun all day. And I appreciate it. Go have a drink, clean up, and rest a bit. I was hoping you and I could talk, later.”</p>
<p>Surprised at Hugh seeming to anticipate him, Elnor nodded. “I would like that,” he said, smiling back. “I’ll be back in before dark.”</p>
<p>The Artifact had crashed into a large freshwater lake, almost large enough to be an ocean, to Elnor’s eyes, though it lacked the large waves he understood oceans to have. He stood for a long time on the shore, perhaps a quarter-mile walk from the Artifact, his toes in the lapping water, peering out over the glittering expanse. Distantly he could make out land on the other sides, smudges of dark vegetation and yellow sand visible like a murky watercolor painting through the heat-haze. This was a forbidding world, but not devoid of beauty, he thought. It both reminded him of home and was entirely unlike it, which left him feeling adrift.</p>
<p>He waded out into the water, clothes and all, and dove in once it was deep enough to submerge, kicking blindly through the cool shallows until he was soaked through to the skin. He bobbed back up and lay for a while floating, eyes closed, face upturned to the sun, which seemed much less unforgiving here in the coolness of the lake, and wondered what Earth was like. He didn’t know where they would be going on that planet, exactly—didn’t know where <i>home</i> was for Hugh and the Borg Reclamation Project, what he supposed would be his and the xBs’ home, now. Would there be lakes like this, for swimming? Oceans? Earth had a great many oceans, he knew, from reading Earth adventure books in his youth. There had once been whole classes of people who sailed across those oceans in primitive ships made of wood and cloth, waging battles and hunting sea monsters, all the while never knowing that one day, people like them would sail through the stars, and think little of those oceans anymore. And that, light years away, a man of a people they never knew existed would daydream about those oceans, wondering if they were really as big as the books had said, and as beautiful.</p>
<p>After a long while, he climbed from the water, pulling off his clothes and unzipping the waterproof bag he’d brought. He drew out some soap and scrubbed all his clothes against the rocks that lined the shoreline; there was little he could do about removing all the bloodstains, now black along the collar of his shirt and the edges of the cut that had been made down the front of his coat. He shuddered looking at it, rubbing unconsciously at his chest. An ugly thought occurred to him. He climbed out onto a larger, flatter boulder, leaned over the edge of it to peer at his reflection in the water. Touching at his cheek where she had carved into him, a flicker of remembered agony flared along his jaw; looking now, he couldn’t see a scar, or any trace of where her knife had been. He felt gingerly over his cheek, feeling strangely hollow. He wondered what she had been writing in his skin, what her hatred had looked like on his body before Hugh’s very good work with the dermal regenerator had wiped away her touch forever. It frightened him a little, not to know. Anger like that should leave some sign behind, he thought. He should be able to see and remember what she’d done. But then, he didn’t think he’d soon forget the cold madness in her eyes, the way she’d touched him as if he was disgusting to her. Neither would he forget how Hugh’s arms had felt around him, after—unnaturally strong, reassuring by their very presence that he would not let Elnor fall.</p>
<p>Turning away from his reflection, Elnor spread all his clothes out on the bank to dry and dove back into the water, eeling through the greenish-yellow depths, staying under as long as he could hold his breath. It felt good to stretch his limbs, better to be surrounded by the buffering, sound-dulling weight of water. He felt he could think more clearly here, let go of some of his memories of the Zhat Vash woman’s face, and the distorted faces of his loved ones from his nightmare that had been swirling around in his mind for days. He did not want to carry those memories off this world; he’d already recorded them in his journal, and he was done letting them plague him.</p>
<p>He stayed in the water until his heart felt lighter and his fingertips were wrinkled; the sky was darkening, the grey clouds beginning to close out the sun. There was just enough light left for Elnor to sit on the sun-warmed stones of the embankment and pull out his repair kit from his bag, sewing down loose threads in the seams of his shirt and pants, stitching closed the gash in his coat. He bit off the final thread just as thunder began rumbling overhead, and redressed quickly, running to beat the storm back to the cube.</p>
<p>This storm was not like the first, all lightning and coursing sheets of rain. The broken cube leaked in a hundred thousand places, but luckily not in the sleeping quarters, and there was none of the moaning, howling wind that had made the sandstorm so oppressive. Most everyone had retreated to the bunkroom to stay dry. Elnor was a little surprised to see Hugh there, too, when he came in to stash his things in his bed. “Are your quarters leaking too?” Elnor asked him, smiling sympathetically.</p>
<p>Hugh laughed; it seemed to be coming a little easier to him as the day went on. “They might be, for all I know. I didn’t have the heart to be alone, right now.” He paused, looking Elnor up and down consideringly. “You look refreshed. Feel better?”</p>
<p>“Much.” Elnor regarded him in turn, dropping his voice a little. “And you?”</p>
<p>Hugh sighed softly, some expression flickering over his face too quickly to catch, and then canted his head toward the far end of the room, where all the beds were empty. Elnor nodded, drawing his comb from his things and following him. They settled on two bunks facing each other, Hugh watching interestedly as Elnor began to methodically comb out and braid his wet hair. It was another moment before Hugh spoke. “I’m very glad to be back,” he murmured.</p>
<p>“We’re glad to have you back,” Elnor replied. He couldn’t help but stare at Hugh a little, taking stock of him. It was hard to believe he, too, was unmarked from his close brush with disaster—if anything, he looked healthier now than he had when he’d left, less pale, better rested. Hugh watched him quietly, patiently, until Elnor let out a shaky breath. “I think I am still...realizing that you’re really alright.”</p>
<p>His eyes crinkling a little at the corners, Hugh nodded, finally looking away again, raking his hand back through his hair. “I know the feeling. I’m sorry if all that business with the recording just made things more confusing for you. I wasn’t really sure what else to do, if I’m honest.” He shrugged, grinned self-deprecatingly. “And you’d come to my rescue once before.”</p>
<p>Elnor shook his head immediately. “No, I would have been even more lost without your help. I was very glad for the information you left me, and for...your trust. That you wanted to help me stay and help them. It is what I wanted more than anything, and it’s what I still want.”</p>
<p>Hugh’s expression went a little incredulous. “Elnor, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. What you’ve done for me and the others, I’m very grateful, but I don’t expect you to stay now that the danger has passed. I wouldn’t ask you to—”</p>
<p>“You said you’d looked up the Qowat Milat,” Elnor interjected. “How did you know that name?”</p>
<p>Brought up short, Hugh was quiet a moment, then said, “She called you that, didn’t she? Narissa.”</p>
<p>Elnor was taken aback by the sudden knowledge of her name. It seemed ridiculous that he only now realized he had not known it before. <i>Narissa</i>, he thought, matching the name to cruel dark eyes and the memory of pain. And then he intentionally put her from his mind altogether. “Yes. She was mocking me. The Qowat Milat living on Vashti took me in when our home was destroyed and my family killed, and raised me alongside the girls in the order. I cannot be Qowat Milat. No man can be. But they taught me what I know of fighting and surviving.” He smiled a little. “And being candid.”</p>
<p>Hugh smiled back. “So you had a more vested interest in freeing this cube from the Tal Shiar than I realized,” he said, lightly teasing. Elnor laughed softly, nodded.</p>
<p>“In a way, yes,” he said. “That wasn’t the reason I stayed, but. It did make the choice more straightforward for me. Besides,” he added primly, tying off the end of his braid and flipping it back over his shoulder, “I gave them the choice to live, and they did not accept it.”</p>
<p>Hugh’s look went sharper, intense in a way that made Elnor’s ears hot. “Yes, you did,” he replied quietly, seeming...satisfied, somehow. Elnor tried not to notice how that made heat trickle down into the pit of his stomach.</p>
<p>He licked his lips, continued, “As I said, I didn’t choose to stay because of the Tal Shiar. I wanted to do it for you, and the others.” He canted his head toward the xBs bunking down at the other end of the room. “And I still do. My oath to you all still stands. Qowat Milat can swear their swords to a cause they find worthy, and what I said to Captain Rios was true: I can’t imagine a more worthy cause than making sure that what happened to your people here never happens again.”</p>
<p>Hugh’s eyes were wide and almost equally dark in the dim light. “But you’re not a Qowat Milat.”</p>
<p>Elnor looked away. “I’m not. But I have been allowed to do this. I did it for Picard, when he came to Vashti seeking my help.” <i>My sword’s help, anyway.</i> “I was his <i>qalankhkai</i>, and now I would like to be yours, if you have use for me.”</p>
<p>Hugh was quiet again for a long moment. Then he said, “What does that word mean? Qalan—?”</p>
<p>“Qalankhkai,” Elnor said, pronouncing it carefully for him. “‘Sworn sword.’ The Qowat Milat use a sword called a <i>tan qalanq.</i> Anyone who carries one may become qalankhkai.”</p>
<p>“And...what does it entail? Being a qalankhkai.” He said it nearly perfectly that time.</p>
<p>“It means that I am bound to do whatever I can to see your cause succeed. I will help you in any way you need, and fight for you when necessary, until we both agree to dissolve our oath. If my actions can make the difference in whether your mission is successful, I will act.”</p>
<p>Hugh gazed fixedly down at his feet, his hands tight on the edge of the bare mattress beneath him. “That’s why you stepped in front of me,” he said. “Over and over again.” When he looked up, his expression was serious and sad. “You’re talking about sacrificing your life for me.”</p>
<p>“Not sacrificing,” Elnor assured him. “And not only for you. For all of you. Your lives are important. I want to protect them if I can. It isn’t a sacrifice, it’s a goal.”</p>
<p>“My life is not worth more than yours,” Hugh said firmly.</p>
<p>“What about theirs?”</p>
<p>Hugh didn’t reply. Elnor watched his eyes slide past him toward the people milling quietly around behind him. Unreadable emotion flitted across his face, and when he sighed, Elnor knew he’d made his point.</p>
<p>“I’m not looking to throw my life away,” he said gently. “Any more than you were, when you got in that ship. I’ve never felt more sure that my life could <i>mean</i> something. This is what I want to do.”</p>
<p>“Do you know what it is that you’d be doing?” Hugh countered, with a wry, tired smile. “What <i>we</i> do? It mostly isn’t swordfights and rescue operations. It’s a lot of paperwork, a lot of research, a lot of very slow progress. A lot of waiting around.” He gestured demonstratively around them. “It isn’t glamorous work, and it usually isn’t very fun.”</p>
<p>Elnor tipped his head a little, considering. “Have you ever been to Vashti, Hugh?”</p>
<p>Hugh raised his eyebrows. “No, I haven’t.”</p>
<p>“It was a human colony, when we relocated there after Inxtis was destroyed. They had room and resources to give us a home. I remember how grateful everyone felt, that we had someplace to go; so many others weren’t as lucky. And I remember the humans being friendly, mostly. Their governor made a speech to welcome us to our new home. That was when I was seven. By the time I was ten, the Federation had withdrawn support for our colony, and the resources that the colonists shared with us before started to disappear. Our new neighbors became less friendly, more suspicious, wondering why we had come to disrupt their way of life. And the refugees weren’t as happy, when it was hard to see a future for ourselves in a place that wasn’t ours, where we weren’t even really welcome. Many people were angry that we had been left behind—even the Free State seemed to have forgotten us. People went hungry, or lost their homes, and in some places the only safety was the expensive kind you buy from gang leaders.</p>
<p>“And every day, my mothers and sisters and I got up, and we went to work, trying to make the lives of everyone on Vashti better if we could, because we could see that no one else would. We petitioned our community council for things we knew the poorest among us needed. We helped patrol the roads and spaceport to protect travelers from thieves. We made food for anyone who needed a meal. And every day, there were more homeless people, injured people, hungry people. No matter how much we tried to help, people were still hurting—humans, Romulans, all sorts of people. Half the time, we had to fight just to survive, ourselves. People would steal from us. They saw us as easy targets. Sisters would occasionally just disappear, because even in a struggling colony, the Tal Shiar took what opportunities they had to weaken us.” Elnor gave Hugh a soft smile. “It wasn’t safe, and it wasn’t easy,” he murmured, “but it was worth doing, every day. If we made a difference for even one person, it was worth it.”</p>
<p>Hugh watched him in silence that stretched out long enough to make Elnor want to squirm. But he didn’t. He met Hugh’s eyes, unflinching, until Hugh looked away, huffing a disbelieving laugh.</p>
<p>“What would I need to do, to say yes to you being our qalankhkai?” he finally asked. Elnor’s soft smile burst wider, bright and hopeful. “Is...are there words we need to say?”</p>
<p>“Simply agree to let me stay. It doesn’t have to be anything formal, if you don’t want it to be. I’ve already made my decision and told you what I want.”</p>
<p>“Yes, but surely there’s more to it than that,” Hugh pressed. “I want this to be fair to you. You aren’t my servant.”</p>
<p>“No,” Elnor said, shaking his head. “It isn’t like that. We would be...friends, if that’s what you want. You would be giving me a home and a purpose. I would help you any way I can.” He hesitated. He wouldn’t lie or try to improve upon the truth of his own skills. “I am a capable fighter, a hard worker. And a fast learner. I’m sure I could be useful somewhere.”</p>
<p>Hugh’s face went a little pained for a moment. “I’m less concerned about you being useful than about you being <i>happy</i>, Elnor,” he said. Elnor watched him, his heart skipping a beat. “But. If this is what you truly want to do, then we would all be very fortunate to have you.” He offered his hand, and Elnor reached out and took it, warm and firm, smiling so hard it hurt. When he drew back, he bowed over his open-book palms, grinning up at Hugh with his eyebrows raised until Hugh mimicked the motion.</p>
<p>“It’s settled, then,” Elnor said as he straightened again. He felt light and settled in his heart, even more secure in what he was doing now than he had been when he’d chosen to leave Vashti with Picard. And Hugh still seemed a little thunderstruck, but not unhappy with his decision. Truth be told, he looked like a man who had narrowly cheated death and returned to a home he never expected to see again. Elnor stood, offering Hugh his hand to help him up. “Perhaps we should both get some sleep. It’s been an eventful day.”</p>
<p>“Is this part of your duty too?” Hugh teased him. “Sending me to bed on time?”</p>
<p>Elnor shrugged, smile never faltering. “If that is what you need, then yes,” he said. “And I believe you need it now.”</p>
<p>“Luckily for both of us, I agree with you,” Hugh said, letting Elnor haul him to his feet; he was still being a little careful of his leg, and Elnor wondered if he hadn’t yet fully healed. “I don’t think I could win an argument with you even if I <i>were</i> well-rested. And you were still unarmed.”</p>
<p>“It would be very difficult for you,” Elnor deadpanned, nodding somberly. Hugh laughed again, sending a happy thrill through Elnor’s stomach; he was beginning to like that sound very much. “Being your qalankhkai doesn’t mean I let you win fights.”</p>
<p>Hugh’s smile lit his eyes. “Noted.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Elnor hadn’t been back to this part of the Artifact since just after the crash; it was suitably quiet and still, even the hum of the cube’s living machinery seeming muted. His ringing footsteps felt intrusively loud as he neared the open bay where the Artifact’s dead lay in stasis. He had a feeling it was probably always quiet, here, but not because it was never visited; he could see overlapping footprints in the thin film of dust on the floor. Beyond the wide archway barricaded by a nearly transparent energy field, bodies lay in neat rows beneath what bedclothes and thermal blankets could be spared for them. He knew some of them from Hugh’s files, snapshots of who they’d been: Samira, Kothlo, Seventh of Seven, so many names and designations he would never meet. He wondered about others, xBs who had lived and died beyond reach of anyone like Hugh who would help them. If these people had awakened in this place without friendly faces to greet them, if it had only been the Tal Shiar, or even humans like Admiral Picard who thought the Borg were just a plague...what would have become of them? Here and now, they were people; even the dead were people, mourned by those who left their footprints when they came to stand watch outside their tomb. Elnor mourned them, too, even though he hadn’t known them. They might have died out there in the cold black, with no one to remember them at all.</p>
<p>Heavy footsteps approaching drew him back to himself; Fourth of Twelve gave him a little nod, an approximation of a smile for some who had not yet relearned the habit of it. Or perhaps Fourth of Twelve had never smiled. Elnor didn’t know what people he’d come from, and neither did Hugh’s dossiers. He was stout and humanoid, with bluish-black skin that gleamed like glass and strange, compound green eyes. The scars of reclamation ravaged the lower half of his face, cracked cerulean fissures webbed across his mouth and jaw and throat. But when he spoke, his voice was always very gentle and soft, and his four-fingered hands were exceedingly delicate with fine mechanical work.</p>
<p>Elnor did smile at him, faintly. It felt somehow wrong both to speak and not to speak in this place; in the end, he settled for saying softly, “How are you?”</p>
<p>“Alone,” Fourth of Twelve replied, looking in past the stasis barrier at his fallen shipmates. “Very strange to be alone here.”</p>
<p>Elnor hesitated, then prompted carefully, “Because you’re used to the Collective?”</p>
<p>“Yes, so,” he said, waggling his head back and forth once. “But also used to before. And after.”</p>
<p>Elnor must have looked more perplexed than he meant to. Fourth of Twelve regarded him a moment, then hummed softly in his throat, seeming to consider. “Before: in my home, surrounded by others. I think, family. After: I wake, here, many, many others. Many gone now. Many gone forever.” He turned back, faceted eyes glittering strangely in the low light as he looked over the bodies. He made that little purring noise again, continued even more quietly, “Soon, again many. On Earth, maybe.”</p>
<p>“With Hugh, and the others in the Borg Reclamation Project?” Elnor suggested, and got another head waggle.</p>
<p>“So. Many on the ship, asleep still. Asleep and safer, maybe?”</p>
<p>Elnor hummed; his turn to consider. “Maybe,” he allowed. “But they can’t choose, that way. They can’t make decisions for their lives. Not even about whether they live or die.”</p>
<p>Fourth of Twelve was silent a long moment. Elnor stood beside him, looking at the dozens of blanket-covered mounds, each a lifetime’s worth of choices stolen. A memory from very long ago flashed in his mind, also of shrouded dead bodies in a line. His mother’s was among them, but he could not tell which was hers. He felt his hands curling into fists, forced himself to relax. “Everyone should get a chance to choose,” he finally said, with more heat than he intended. “It isn’t always safe to be awake, but I would still rather get to try to make the best of my time.”</p>
<p>Fourth of Twelve still said nothing. But he had about him that very still, listening posture Elnor was starting to come to recognize in many of the xBs, not as inanimate as he’d first taken it for; it was less like they were stuck inside their own minds than that they were being still so as not to miss a word. After a long while, Fourth of Twelve made another soft throaty sound, turned, and went back the way he’d come. When his footsteps had faded away, Elnor left in the opposite direction.</p>
<p>He spent most of the morning going through all of Hugh’s files, again, trying to get a feel for how the Borg Reclamation Project worked, or had worked, before the Artifact fell into chaos. There had been many other members of staff here, not just Hugh: doctors and psychologists and surgeons and people whose roles, it seemed, had been something like his own—helpers. That heartened him a little. He didn’t need special knowledge to do some good, here.</p>
<p>“How do you choose your names?” Elnor asked Corvus as they swept sand from the entrance of the Artifact for what felt like the millionth time. Vashti had been a desert, but it was not this sandy, and Elnor was already wearying of trying to keep the terrain outside where it belonged.</p>
<p>“‘We’ don’t do anything,” the Orion replied, a bit shortly, giving Elnor a warning look.</p>
<p>“I apologize,” Elnor said sincerely. “I didn’t mean to offend.”</p>
<p>Corvus quirked a half-smile at him. “I know you didn’t. It’s different for every person. Some still remember the names they were given by their families, some don’t mind the names they were given by the Borg.” He made a bit of a face. “I found mine in a book of star maps.”</p>
<p>“Really?” Elnor grinned.</p>
<p>“Earth star maps,” Corvus said, with an answering smile. “Hugh gave it to me, when I was still barely talking.”</p>
<p>“You? Barely talking?”</p>
<p>“Did they think you were funny, back on your world?” Corvus deadpanned, pushing a last little mound of grit out the crack in the hull and dusting off his hands and clothes.</p>
<p>“Only sometimes,” Elnor admitted. “So why did you choose ‘Corvus’?”</p>
<p>“I liked the sound of it, mostly. I got curious and looked it up, and found out it was a constellation named after a bird that some humans used to revere.”</p>
<p>“I see now why you chose it.”</p>
<p>Corvus vigorously swept a cloud of dust at Elnor, who laughed and sidestepped it. “<i>No,</i> I picked it because the humans thought this bird stole the sun, moon, and stars. And I thought, if I ever got off this cube, that was what I was going to do. Fly away, steal every star and moon I could find, just to look at them forever, and never set foot on a spaceship ever again.” He smiled, a little ruefully. “The night sky here is amazing. I’m going to miss it when we go.”</p>
<p>“I miss Vashti’s stars,” Elnor agreed, taking Corvus’ broom and settling it in the corner with his own as they headed to the mess hall. “They seemed bigger and clearer than the ones here. But maybe that’s only because I was familiar with them.”</p>
<p>“Did Vashti have a moon, too?”</p>
<p>“Yes, much bigger than either of Coppelius’ moons, and pale blue. The humans who’d colonized the planet first called it Charis; when I left, the refugees were arguing over whether we should call it something different, just to be contrary with the humans. Mostly we just called it ‘the moon,’ since it was the only one we had.”</p>
<p>“How about Romulus?”</p>
<p>“It had two moons, but I never saw them. I was never on Romulus.”</p>
<p>Corvus’ eyebrows went up interestedly.</p>
<p>“I’m from a planet called Inxtis. It was a Romulan colony not far from the homeworld. My parents were both from Romulus, but I never went.” He and Corvus grabbed some lunch from the replicator and sat at a table already nearly full with other xBs also eating and talking. Elnor looked around briefly for Hugh, but didn’t see him here. “And both planets are gone now. I’m hoping Earth agrees with me.”</p>
<p>Corvus snorted a little. Elnor watched him gently lean into the person on the other side of him, who acknowledged him with a smile but never stopped talking to the person across from them. Everyone around the table sat close, shoulders, elbows, knees bumping. Some of them shared their food and drink with each other. Elnor smiled wistfully; mealtimes with his sisters had looked something like this, loud and rowdy, stealing off each others’ plates or trading for bits they liked better. Elnor always wanted more bread and no one was ever willing to give it up, which was part of why he’d asked one of his older sisters to teach him to make it.</p>
<p>“—sand everywhere,” Corvus was saying. Elnor shook his head a little.</p>
<p>“Sorry, what?”</p>
<p>“I said, I’ll be happy anywhere we go as long as there isn’t sand everywhere. I don’t know how you keep it out of your hair.”</p>
<p>“I don’t,” Elnor said, smiling. “Every night when I comb it out, I leave half the desert on the floor next to my bunk.”</p>
<p>“You should go bald like the rest of us!” He rubbed at his nearly-shaven head, grinning and glancing around; it was true: Most of the xBs were either still shorn or had only begun growing out their hair. Only one had a full head of hair, and she smiled at Elnor from down the table.</p>
<p>“Don’t listen to him,” she said, tossing a pomegranate seed at Corvus. “He’s just mad his is still coming in patchy.”</p>
<p>Corvus groaned and flicked the pip right back at her; she caught it with preternatural speed and stuck her tongue out at him.</p>
<p>“You’re Nan, right?” Elnor asked her, her name from Hugh’s files matching up with his memories of her from around the ship.</p>
<p>“That’s me,” she replied. “And you’re Hugh’s bodyguard, right?”</p>
<p>Elnor’s eyebrows climbed. “I...you could say that, yes. Did he tell you?”</p>
<p>“Didn’t have to.” She tapped the side of her head. “When he linked in with us, we saw what you did for him. I was there when we came to get you away from the other Romulans.” She frowned a little. “You aren’t one of them, though?”</p>
<p>“No, I’m not,” Elnor said, firmly. “Not at all. Thank you, for...saving my life.”</p>
<p>“You helped save ours.” She regarded him quietly, then looked around at her tablemates and said, “Have you met everyone here already?”</p>
<p>He shook his head. “No, but I’d like to.”</p>
<p>“Elnor’s interested in how we all got our names,” Corvus supplied around a mouthful of his lunch. “He thinks we all have really good stories behind them.”</p>
<p>“We do,” Nan said primly. “Nan’s actually my name; I wasn’t part of the Collective for very long, only a couple of years. I have family on Earth that I can remember and who I’m hoping will be happy to see me.” Her smile was bright and sunny; if it weren’t for the missing eye and the scars ringing where it had been, she almost could have appeared untouched by the Borg, hair a froth of brown curls, cheeks dotted with dimples. She only got more animated as she introduced the others around her: a Vulcan named T’Lon, who also still had her name from before assimilation, although it was the only thing she had; an Akritirian who had chosen the name Akravis from among the gods of a homeworld he didn’t remember. Bartholomew took his name from a human holy book, and First of Three and Ninth of Nine had not picked other names for themselves, and weren’t sure they would. Alava, Rook, Kirk: names as varied as their races, their temperaments, their reasons for choosing the names they did. Elnor committed them to memory, joining these people with their dossiers in his mind, the bits and pieces of their stories that had been known or recovered. Hugh and the others in the Borg Reclamation Project had done their best to piece together their lives where possible, cross-checking Federation records of missing persons and rolls of Starfleet officers missing in action. There was so little to be gleaned, and so few of them here, a handful of little flickering flames in a vast dark galaxy of people no one would ever hear from again.</p>
<p>“How about you, Elnor?” prompted the human man who’d named himself Kirk after the legendary starship captain, his uncertain smile lopsided, pulling at the rough scars and recently regenerated skin on both sides of his face.</p>
<p>“Me?”</p>
<p>“How did <i>you</i> get your name?” Kirk prompted him, which set off a few snickers around the table. Elnor grinned sheepishly; he supposed he deserved that.</p>
<p>“It’s the one my parents gave me,” he said. “There’s more to it than just the one word, but none of the rest of my names mean much now that I’m not on my homeworlds anymore. So I suppose I’m just Elnor, now.”</p>
<p>“Does it mean anything?” Nan pressed.</p>
<p>Elnor laughed. “No, I don’t think so. I think my parents just liked the sound of it, like Corvus liked his.” He smiled at Corvus. “I never heard of an Elnor who stole the sun, moon, and stars, anyway.”</p>
<p>“Oh, you haven’t told all of us that story, yet,” Nan said excitedly, stealing a look at Elnor and leaning in over the table a little, hands wrapped around her steaming raktajino mug. “Tell it again?”</p>
<p>“If you’re sure you want to hear it right now,” Corvus hedged, but Elnor could see the eagerness in his smile and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. He leaned a little closer, too, nodding.</p>
<p>“I’m sure.”</p>
<p>“Alright then,” Corvus said, not bothering to hide his delight as he looked around at his attentive audience and began a story he’d clearly already mastered telling. “So remember, this is a story from Earth, and back when the Earth was younger, it used to be completely dark, because there was a powerful man who had decided to keep the sun, moon, and stars to himself—he even hid fire and water away from everyone. And then one day, Raven saw the man’s beautiful daughter, and fell in love…”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Time got stretched a little strangely in the Artifact. Even planetbound, with a sun and moons to mark the time of day outside, inside it was always perpetual greenish twilight, no viewports, only the occasional crack in the hull the ship had been unable to repair where light could seep in. It never penetrated very far, swallowed up in the rough mechanical textures of a ship built without any aesthetic aim, and in the gloom Elnor lost exact track of the days he spent walking the halls, getting to know his new shipmates. They were nothing like the people he’d left behind on Vashti, so it was odd, he thought, that he should find himself feeling homesick, at times. <i>You’ve never left home before,</i> his mother’s voice came to him as he lay awake one night, staring at the dark, distant ceiling, vaguely dreading more nightmares. In his mind, she sounded amused, and he smiled to himself, missing her. <i>Change is difficult, but necessary.</i></p>
<p><i>Very difficult</i>, he thought back to her. The distant hum of the ship was a constant niggling drone in the back of his mind that he was too aware of; the soft breathing of the sleeping xBs echoed weirdly in the high hall, not the familiar susurrus of a few dozen sleeping women and girls, faintly snoring or whispering companionably in the dark around him. When he let his mind drift to the enormity of being on a planet light years from his home, among people he’d only known a few days and already sworn his life to assist, answerable for so many lives, now, when just weeks ago he’d only had responsibility for his own...he suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe. He sat up, focused on getting air in and out for a few moments, counting out his breaths the way he’d been taught on a different desert world, nothing like this one.</p>
<p>Now further from sleep than ever, he climbed silently down from his bed and wandered out into the pallid green light of the hall. Quiet voices echoed from the other end of it; he followed them to the nearest sickbay, where half a dozen xBs sat on sickbeds and watched Hugh carefully move a dermal regenerator wand over the side of a man’s heavily-scarred neck and arm. As Elnor hesitated in the doorway, several of the xBs canted their heads to look at him in unison, saying nothing, dark eyes fixing on him with uncanny precision. These were some of the most recently awakened people on the ship; all but the one Hugh was working on were still encased in the armored grey suits and heavy prosthetics of the Borg. Elnor was only mortal; being motionlessly regarded by the remnants of a cyborg hive mind responsible for untold death and destruction across the galaxy was no easier for him than it would have been for anyone. They were terrifying.</p>
<p>“Turn your arm over for me?” Hugh, with his back turned to the doorway, said conversationally to the man in front of him, his soft voice gently encouraging. The xB did as bidden, and Hugh cradled his forearm in his palm and moved the wand down the length of it, bit by bit. “It’s time-consuming, the healing process, because your bodies are still in shock, and our nanoprobes weren’t designed for healing us in a beautiful way, only a functional one.” He passed his thumb over a knot of scar tissue, his dark head bent over his work. “It takes several hours of regeneration work like this, and a lot of patience. But I think the results can be good—and hopefully better, where we’re going, than what we could do here.” He straightened, setting the wand back in its stand and giving his patient’s arm a friendly rub before releasing him. The man inspected it, running his fingertips over the ridges of healing scars, now less angry pink than they had been. His scarred face twitched into a little smile, a hesitant, unsure thing that instantly banished Elnor’s fear and discomfort, his heart aching.</p>
<p>Then Hugh turned and saw him there in the doorway; he smiled, too, lighting up like Elnor was just exactly who he’d wanted to see. The ache in Elnor’s chest tightened for an altogether different reason, knocking him momentarily breathless. He just stood there, blinking, and finally Hugh said, “Come help me a minute?”</p>
<p>Broken out of his stupor, Elnor stepped into the sickbay and held a length of medical gauze and scissors as Hugh dressed the man’s arm with some kind of lotion and wrapped it up snugly. “This helps keep the new skin hydrated as it heals,” he explained; Elnor realized now that he was talking not just to the man he was tending, but to all of the people in the room, and all of them listened equally attentively as Hugh explained everything he did. “The regenerators create the new skin very well, but the muscles beneath are still knitting, and the new skin can get irritated. So the gauze protects you. You can take this off tomorrow, Third.” He glanced sideways at Elnor, and something about the angle of his mouth was amused. “Third of Five, this is Elnor, my new friend who’s been helping out around the place. Elnor, meet my twin.”</p>
<p>Elnor looked between them, confused; Third of Five had much more dark brown skin and features entirely different from Hugh’s. They looked nothing alike. Hugh grinned, creases deepening at the corners of his eyes. “Only our names,” he explained, obviously pleased with his little joke. “That used to be my designation, too.”</p>
<p>“Third of Five?” Elnor asked, curiosity flaring. He couldn’t help but carefully study Hugh’s profile a moment, trying to see if <i>Third of Five</i> fit him, suited him. He couldn’t say that it did. It wasn’t any more his name than whatever his name might have been before he was assimilated, and fit him much less well than <i>Hugh</i>, in Elnor’s opinion. Still, it had been his name, once—part of him, just like Elnor’s old second and third names were part of him, described where he was from, what family he’d belonged to. But now he was just Elnor, and Hugh was <i>Hugh</i>.</p>
<p>“Took me a while to get used to the new one,” Hugh was saying, nodding to the wad of gauze in Elnor’s hands. Elnor realized he wanted him to cut off the end; when he did, Hugh wrapped and tucked it securely in place, gave Third another encouraging smile. “My friends gave it to me. Humans. For them...a name was what made them individual, gave them power over themselves, in some way. I’ve always thought they were right, that names are powerful. I think maybe it’s a lucky sign, that I should get to meet another Third of Five. How does your arm feel?”</p>
<p>Third stretched it a little in its new gauze wrapping. He smiled at Hugh again, gave him a jerky little nod. “Good,” Hugh said. He took the supplies back from Elnor, tucked them away in their compartment, while Third and the others gathered together near the door. The other xBs in their armor were the complete opposite of frightening, now, as they all regarded Third’s arm, touched him hesitantly, as if studying him. Elnor watched them all filter out into the hall as a group.</p>
<p>“I thought you were in bed an hour ago,” Hugh’s voice startled Elnor, close at his shoulder.</p>
<p>“I was,” Elnor replied, shaking his head a little. “I’m too restless to sleep, I think.” Now he was looking, Hugh seemed very tired, shadows under his eyes, skin sickly in the green light—although, in fairness, this light did that to everyone’s appearance, here. Still, Elnor gently touched his elbow. “Are you finished for the night? Can I walk you to the bunkroom?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I’m not tired yet, either,” Hugh said with a shrug. Then he paused, taking and letting out a soft breath. “Actually. I probably shouldn’t lie to the man who’s supposed to be guarding my life, should I?”</p>
<p>Elnor shook his head again, definitively. “No, you shouldn’t.” It was his turn to be amused. “How am I supposed to take care of you if you don’t tell me what you need?”</p>
<p>Hugh huffed a not-quite-laugh. “What I need,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Well. In the interest of <i>candor</i>, I am tired, but I’m also too restless to sleep.” He regarded Elnor for a moment, then touched the hand that had touched him, giving his fingers a brief squeeze. “Walk with me?”</p>
<p>They wandered seemingly without direction, and neither spoke much. There were people awake and active at this hour, the remains of what had once been a beta shift, perhaps. But there were fewer of them each day that kept to the Artifact’s old routine; they met only a handful of others, and eventually no one else for a long time. The ship around them was alive but still, almost sleeping, itself. It was a while before Elnor realized Hugh had brought him to a part of the cube he hadn’t properly seen before. He knew, of course, that entire levels of the Artifact—almost the whole upper half of it—were reserved for the endless rows of alcoves in which the Borg rested in stasis when not performing necessary functions, and where thousands of xBs still rested now. He had been up as far as the lowest of these levels, but hadn’t ventured further; each floor of identical alcoves was much the same as the next, after all, and there was something that unnerved him about the sleeping-not-sleeping bodies plugged into the walls like batteries, rank and file of an army that did not know it was an army. They weren’t like unconscious people at all, simply people who had...stopped. It was hard not to feel as though at any moment they could wake up and carry on with their old routines, and that, if they found him there, intruding, they might capture him and stick him in an alcove, too, try to assimilate him, though there was no Borg consciousness left to assimilate him into. He knew that was unfair, and he felt bad about his misgivings, hadn’t admitted them to anyone but his journal. But the stasis levels had been easy enough to avoid, and he’d never had compelling reason to make himself come here.</p>
<p>Now he followed where Hugh led him, up into the midst of the xBs in stasis, silent, waiting. Waiting for—what? For Hugh to wake them? Would it happen all at once, Elnor wondered, and then he remembered that, no, Hugh had already wakened some of them, when taking back the Artifact from the Tal Shiar, and then put them back into stasis again. He hadn’t roused all five-thousand-odd xBs for that, so perhaps they would be woken a few at a time. He watched Hugh look around at the whole floor of them, a thousand little boxes, each containing a person who didn’t yet know they were a person. Or...maybe they did know. Elnor didn’t know what stasis was like. Were they aware of themselves, and the others around them? Did they sense yet that they were cut off from the Collective, a thousand thousand light years, probably, from where they were supposed to be? Were they awake already, but unable to regain consciousness, trapped inside their own heads and fighting to get out? He shuddered a little. For their sakes, he hoped their minds were as still and silent as their bodies.</p>
<p>“I don’t have the first clue where we’re going to put them all,” Hugh said, his voice seeming loud in the echoing quiet. He stood before an alcove containing an inert Caitian, mottled and furless, looking up into their inanimate face with an unreadable expression of his own. “There was never any plan to bring them to Earth. We hadn’t gotten that far. So much about this place was just about trying to claw life back from the edge of death. Thinking ahead was a luxury we never quite got around to.” His jaw flexed a little, though whether in anger or frustration or determination Elnor couldn’t discern. “I never expected to see them all awake.”</p>
<p>Elnor frowned. “You didn’t?”</p>
<p>“Oh, no, and I may not, still,” Hugh said, drawing back from the alcove. He leaned against the railing ringing the inner open expanse of this level of the cube, crisscrossed by catwalks over dizzying space. “Reclaiming all the souls on this cube would have been...four, five lifetimes of work, at the rate we were working, and we were moving faster than we ought to have been. We couldn’t be careful. The Romulans were too impatient for that.” He stopped, looked a little abashed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say it like that. Obviously these particular Romulans weren’t like all of you.”</p>
<p>Elnor shrugged, moving to lean against the railing beside him, crossing his arms comfortably. “You don’t have to apologize. They <i>were</i> Romulans who controlled this ship. More Romulan than I am, in some ways. That they were mostly Tal Shiar sort of proves that; what’s left of our government basically <i>is</i> the Tal Shiar, and most Romulans sympathize with them. Or don’t care enough to question them. I would be the odd one, in a group of people who looked like me.”</p>
<p>“Still.” Hugh mirrored him, crossing his arms over his chest, so their elbows brushed. He smiled up at Elnor; at this proximity, he had to look up quite a bit. “It’s not fair to paint the people who look like you with a broad brush, any more than it would be for you to expect me to act like any of the others just because we’re all xBs.”</p>
<p>Elnor couldn’t help but smile. “You <i>do</i> act alike, in some ways, most of you. I’m sure it’s not true for every xB in the galaxy, but. The people I’ve met here have things in common.”</p>
<p>“Oh?”</p>
<p>“Everyone here seems comfortable with each other. They share food, living quarters, personal space, and there’s very little arguing. I don’t see anyone excluding anyone else. You all work very hard. And everyone I’ve met here seems to enjoy a good story.”</p>
<p>Hugh’s eyes on him went focused in that way that made Elnor hot, like Hugh was seeing <i>into</i> him, and liked what he saw. Elnor gave into the urge to lean into him, just a little more; Hugh might’ve been smaller, but he didn’t sway even a fraction of an inch under Elnor’s weight, as firm as a boulder. “We do love stories,” he said, quieter. “It’s...the Borg don’t contextualize, you see. There aren’t narratives to our existence. Every moment is the same as the last and the next. There’s nothing to mark the days. We—they have no need for it. It’s a consciousness, but not a mind. What makes a <i>mind</i> is...creativity. Reasoning. Understanding why things are, why they happen a certain way. And to understand that, you have to be aware of how they happened before, so you can learn how they might happen again. All of that is just storytelling, observing and learning and building frameworks to help us understand the world. It’s the first thing we learn to do, the first thing I <i>remember</i> doing, as an individual person. Geordi—my friend, Geordi LaForge, on the <i>Enterprise</i>—stood on the other side of the forcefield that contained me, and he looked in at me, and he was afraid. I didn’t understand why, until later. When he came inside the cell with me, he kept his distance. I saw that he was still afraid. And we carried on like that, until, eventually, I realized he wasn’t afraid of me, anymore. He didn’t keep his distance, wasn’t frightened of coming close to me, trying to learn more about me. He had learned I wouldn’t try to hurt him. Learning that changed the way we acted toward each other.” Hugh had grown animated as he spoke; when he paused, he actually had to catch his breath, which made him laugh a little. Elnor realized he’d leaned in toward him, listening as carefully to his story as any of the xBs might have, not wanting to miss a word as he tried to imagine Hugh like these people here: trapped inside metal and machinery and his own mind, working out that he was a person, that he could think things and want things that had nothing to do with the Borg. And now...now Hugh was this real, flesh-and-blood <i>person</i> who burst with life and thoughts and ambition. He’d learned to be this. He’d <i>made</i> himself this.</p>
<p>Hugh seemed reticent to continue, then, so Elnor prompted him gently. “When I asked the others their names, they all had a story for how they’d gotten them. It was important, how they got their names. Even the ones who still had their number designations, or who said they hadn’t really given it any thought, just picked a word that sounded nice. You can still learn something about a person, from that.”</p>
<p>“<i>Exactly</i>,” Hugh said, nodding, his eyes wide and alive in the weird green light, intent on Elnor, arresting. “We’re all, collectively, making sense of this place, this life that we have now. And I wanted, more than anything, to be able to give them all a better starting place than I had when I started putting it all together. I wasn’t alone, but. I needed more help, more guidance. Figuring it all out mostly on my own, I couldn’t learn from anyone else’s experiences, couldn’t compare what I was feeling and thinking to others. Had to learn everything the hard way. I didn’t want that for them.” He finally looked away, up and over all the rows and rows of people. When he turned back, there were tears in his eyes. “I knew I’d never be able to be there, personally, for every person on this cube, Elnor, but I thought that at least they would all be safe. That the worst had already happened to them, and they’d survived. And it was arrogant, maybe, to think that I could put myself between them and danger, that I could be enough to make a difference, when I couldn’t even protect the few of them I had, and—” Tears streamed down his cheeks, and his voice cracked so badly he stopped trying to speak. Elnor reached out to him, desperate for Hugh to <i>understand</i> and completely at a loss for the words that would make it clear just how much of a difference he’d made. Hurting for him, Elnor cupped his face, bent down, and kissed him.</p>
<p>It was simple. Elnor realized he’d been wanting this for days without knowing he did. Hugh’s skin was warm against his palms, the metal implant in his jaw a cool contrast, and Hugh’s mouth was soft under his, lips parted in shock. For a heartstopping moment, he didn’t respond, only stood stock still in Elnor’s hands, long enough for Elnor’s heart to plummet, for him to begin to draw back, apologies already crowding behind his teeth for presuming too much, wanting what Hugh did not want to give him. He’d overstepped, he had read too much into the way Hugh looked at him, he’d—and then, with a soft, broken sound in his throat, Hugh balled one hand in the front of Elnor’s clothes as he had done once before and pulled him back in with inhuman strength. He tasted of tears, his mouth hot and responsive under Elnor’s, now, feverish. Relief blossomed warm in Elnor’s chest; he gathered Hugh close and opened his mouth to taste more of him, past the tears, to the heat of his tongue, the coolness of an indrawn breath. Hugh tugged on him insistently until he was pinned between Elnor and the cold railing behind him, until he wasn’t crying anymore, but panting, finally breaking away and pressing his head to Elnor’s chest and just breathing, while Elnor held him and tucked his face into Hugh’s thick, dark hair.</p>
<p>They stood breathing raggedly for what felt like a long time, the cold air of the Artifact seeping into Elnor’s skin and bones, except where he and Hugh still touched. Hugh’s fine trembling gradually faded. Finally, Elnor murmured, “You <i>are</i> enough.” His heart fluttered in his core, and his lips still tasted of salt when he licked them. “You don’t see it. You only see that you failed. But we survived. And from now on, every person here will know when they wake up that it was because of you. We’ll tell them the story, if you aren’t here to do it yourself.”</p>
<p>Hugh let out a shaky sigh, said nothing for several long seconds. Elnor didn’t let him go, just ran his fingers up and down his back, catching here and there on the ports beneath his clothes that had let him interface with the ship, wresting control of it away from the people who would have killed them all, a miracle that Elnor still barely understood. All he knew was that he’d trust Hugh to save him again and again. And he was as certain as he’d ever been of anything that Hugh would do it if he could.</p>
<p>Finally, gently, Hugh pushed back, and Elnor very reluctantly let him go. Hugh’s face was flushed with crying, maybe with kissing, too, but he looked more tired and wan than ever. He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, wiping away the last of his tears and taking a steadying breath, leaning back against the rail, his hands curled white-knuckled around it.</p>
<p>“I believe you will,” he finally said, voice soft and ragged. He offered Elnor the faintest smile, though, and Elnor answered it. “It’s still too much work for any one person, or even any two. I’m not sure what’s going to be waiting for us when we get to Earth, but it will be months before we can begin the reclamation project again, really—finding places for us all to stay, somewhere to keep these people in stasis, medical facilities, staff…” He trailed off, sighing.</p>
<p>“Sounds like you need all the help you can get,” Elnor replied, eyes drifting to Hugh’s mouth. His own still buzzed, and it was all he could do not to sway in and kiss him again. </p>
<p>Hugh caught him looking, glanced away, cheeks going redder still. “I do,” he replied. “But...there won’t be much you can do, to start out with, Elnor. Like I said, I barely know what I’ll be doing when we get there. I may not even be around very much at first. I’ve been wondering if there wouldn’t be a...better use of your talents for the time being.”</p>
<p>“What were you thinking of?” Elnor asked, a little confused.</p>
<p>“What do you know of what Admiral Picard and his crew plan to do, now that he’s rescued Dr. Asha?”</p>
<p>Thrown by the change in topic, Elnor frowned briefly. “Nothing, really. I know they’re waiting for word about what the Federation plans to do about the synths. Until then, I don’t think they can leave, because of...what has happened with Admiral Picard.”</p>
<p>Hugh nodded. After a moment’s hesitation, he said, quieter, “Just before I left for Coppelius Station, you said something about him I didn’t understand. What did you mean you weren’t sure about him abandoning you?”</p>
<p>Elnor flinched a little, and Hugh looked apologetic. “I’m sorry if that was an insensitive question,” he said, but Elnor was already shaking his head.</p>
<p>“No, it’s alright. Just a bad memory. I said that because he left me behind once before. When I was a child, he was responsible for escorting the ship carrying us to Vashti. He saw to it personally, even came to visit a few times after we were settled—I believe he was close to my mother, or at least enjoyed her company. There was a time I thought he liked my company too. And then, one day, he just stopped coming. I did not see him again until a few weeks ago. At the time I didn’t realize the entire Federation had withdrawn; I only knew that I didn’t see Picard again.”</p>
<p>“He was gone for a whole lifetime, from your point of view,” Hugh said sympathetically. “I'm sorry. That must have been difficult for you to understand.”</p>
<p>Elnor laughed, self-deprecating. “Thank you for your kindness. But I had a child's understanding of the world. I held onto the anger and hurt of it longer than I should have; even so, I thought I had forgotten it until he appeared again. Around him, it seems, I will always feel like a stupid child.”</p>
<p>“I'll always be grateful to him for offering to stand between me and the Collective, no matter how else he disappoints me,” Hugh agreed quietly. “He’s done his share of leaving me on my own, too. But I suppose there are some impressions you never really outgrow.”</p>
<p>“He left you?” Elnor looked stricken. Hugh’s crooked smile was like a little shrug.</p>
<p>“Me and the others from my cube,” he explained. “When I was on board the <i>Enterprise<i>, I asked to be returned to the Borg so that they wouldn’t come after him and his crew. I knew they wouldn’t stop looking until they found me. I didn’t know at the time what would happen when I went back to the Collective—if I would lose my memories, my personhood. But the opposite happened. The things I had learned from Geordi and Dr. Crusher spread through our link to the others on my cube, and it caused the whole ship to malfunction. The Borg cut off our cube and left it drifting in space, just like the Artifact, until someone found us who wanted to use us—not very different from what the Tal Shiar wanted with us here.” His lip curled. “We were fortunate that the <i>Enterprise</i> found us again, but once they’d neutralized the threat posed by the man who’d taken control of us, they just left again. I was also angry at Picard, for a very long time. At all of them. I didn’t understand how they could have left us to fend for ourselves, and in some ways I still don’t. I hadn’t seen the admiral since then, until he came aboard this ship looking for Soji.”</i></i></p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Elnor reached for Hugh’s hand again; Hugh took it, and Elnor felt obscurely better. “You still helped him when he asked for it.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“So did you.” Hugh smiled. “Like I said: It’s hard to resist that first instinct to help when he needs it. And...Elnor, I think he may need your help, now. I think maybe you should travel with him and the others for a while longer.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Elnor’s stomach twisted. “You do not want me to come with you?” he murmured, and had to tell himself not to clutch Hugh’s hand so tightly.</i>
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</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“It's not that at all,” Hugh said immediately, firm. “But even with his...new configuration, Picard doesn't have a lot of time left. And you still haven't seen much off Vashti, and what you have seen is...well, I'd like you to have the chance to see more of the galaxy. I don't think you'll be making many trips off Earth once you start working with the project. I know you said you weren’t doing this for fun, but. It would be good for you, and, I think, for the admiral, to have some time with you. To get to know the person you’ve grown up to be.” Hugh brushed Elnor’s knuckles lightly with his thumb. “I want you to do this for yourself, before you come to Earth. At least think about it. You’re only young once, after all.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Elnor looked at their linked hands, worry and affection knotting together in his stomach. “I have chosen to serve this cause with you,” he told Hugh, “and that’s what I intend to do. But if you think it would be worthwhile, then I will think about it, as you ask. I still think my youth would be best used to help you, if I can.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Hugh huffed a laugh. “You have decades of youth left,” he said, faintly teasing. “You may be doing the project a service with this, too, you know—you may learn things from <i>La Sirena</i>’s crew you can use when you get to Earth. Or maybe tell them what you’ve learned about the xBs. And I'd feel better if you were there to help Picard adjust. He and I may not see eye to eye, but I owe him my freedom. Every xB I've ever helped owes him, as well. And we can't be with him, but you can.”</i>
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</p>
<p>
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    <i>Elnor sighed softly, looking out at the little doorways of light defining each alcove that surrounded them. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you,” he murmured.</i>
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<p>
  <i>
    <i>“I won’t order you to go,” Hugh replied. “But I can promise to keep myself alive and well on Earth much more effectively than I have done since we met. The past few days are...quite atypical of my life. Even on the Artifact.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Elnor hummed, smirking and narrowing his eyes at Hugh. “You don't usually fly Borg ships into battle with the entire Romulan fleet, then?”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>That made Hugh laugh for real, and for a moment, his face looked less shadowed. “Only on special occasions,” he said.</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Hm.” Elnor moved closer again, watching Hugh watch him. “The Qowat Milat have a saying: ‘A promise is a prison.’ But in this case, I will accept your promise to stay safe on Earth. I trust the others will help look after you.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“We’ll look after each other,” Hugh said. His fingers were warm in Elnor’s. “So long as you promise to look after yourself, too.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Elnor nodded, reaching up to tuck Hugh’s hair back behind his ear. Hugh leaned his head a little into the touch. “This once, I’ll make a promise to you.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Thank you.” Hugh sighed, seeming to sag a little against the railing. “Do you think you could sleep, now?”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Yes, I think so,” Elnor replied, though that wasn’t entirely candid. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to stop thinking about the warmth of Hugh’s mouth on his for some time...but at least that should hold off the nightmares. “You?”</i>
  </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>“Yes,” Hugh said. “I think I’ll rest much better now.”</i>
  </i>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>After days in the cool darkness of the cube, Coppelius Station was almost blindingly bright in the midmorning sun. The low white stone buildings of the synth compound glittered like the sand around them, and the synths moved among them like jewels, each one uncannily beautiful, dressed in vibrant silks and watching the newcomers with alert gemstone eyes. While Soji, who sat laughing with some of the other androids on the lip of an elaborate sculpted fountain, seemed to have been made specifically to look as human as possible, many of the others here did not seem to follow the same design. Skin like burnished bronze or gold, flowing hair the color and texture of feathers, bioluminescent freckles, features just a little too sharply angled to be natural—Elnor found them all fascinating, and they seemed to think much the same of him. Several had eagerly accosted him almost the moment he and Hugh walked into town with two dozen xBs in tow, immediately peppering him with friendly questions about where he’d come from, what he knew about Romulus and other worlds. Their curious hands touched his coat and hair and ears, and he laughed, bemused, as he looked to see other synths similarly surrounding Hugh and the others, equally hungry to learn about the xBs as the xBs were to learn about them.</p>
<p>When the initial fascination had died down some, the synths drew them all further into the center of town; it seemed Raffi and Soji had told them quite a bit about the Artifact and the people on it, these strange unseen visitors to their secluded little world. They’d been hoping for a visit, almost as much as Corvus had been hoping to get off the cube and come see the planet’s only settlement. It was certainly beautiful, but the more he saw of it, the more Elnor found it sterile and cold. It was certainly very comfortable; Dr. Soong and his people had made their dwellings open to welcome their visitors, and inside, the buildings were cool and dim and breezy, with places to sit and cold drinks seemingly ready to hand no matter where you looked. But none of the spaces looked very lived in; every surface was pristine and new, just like the synths themselves, and there was no clutter, nothing out of place anywhere. It made sense, Elnor supposed; just as the Artifact was all right angles and machine precision because it had been created to the specifications of a machine consciousness, Coppelius Station had been organized by computers. Creative, thinking, reasoning, beautiful computers, to be sure, but still computers, with no room for mess or inefficiency. Elnor found himself anxious to sit or lean on anything, somehow nervous he might bump the furniture askew or displace a chair cushion and get in trouble.</p>
<p>“Thirsty?” Raffi’s voice at his elbow startled Elnor a little, and her eyebrows shot up when he jumped. “Whoa. Easy, now. You’re wound tighter than a spring.” She pressed a coolly sweating glass of something pale green into his hand, smiling crookedly up at him, and he smiled back and took a drink of whatever she’d given him: sweet and cold and refreshing, like fruit but not one he recognized. He hummed approval, then took another look at her; she’d traded out her hard-wearing, practical clothes for something similar to what many of the synths wore, flowy and diaphanous, in misty grey and buttery yellow. Seeing him looking, she stepped back with her arms out in a little display, giving him a twirl to show off the whole ensemble. Iridescent shell clips held her hair up off her neck, too, and she looked both lovely and relaxed for maybe the first time since Elnor had met her.</p>
<p>“You know what they say—when in Rome, and all that.” She swallowed a sip of her own drink, then laughed abruptly. “Oh, actually, no, you probably don’t know that. Anyway, I didn’t see why Soji should get to have all the fun.” She nodded to Dr. Asha, who was also kitted out in something very different to the dark grey coverall she’d worn every previous time Elnor had seen her, a stylish white dress he thought might be an Earth fashion, short and unadorned, cut straight and sleeveless. With her dark hair and eyes, it looked nicer than he thought it might have on most other people. He suddenly felt a little underdressed, though he’d washed and pressed his clothes especially before coming, buffing his boots and meticulously braiding his hair in a complicated triple-plait. This was, after all, a special occasion, in a way: they’d received word yesterday that the synth ban had been repealed, and the crew of <i>La Sirena</i>—once again including Elnor—were to depart this afternoon for parts as-yet-undecided.</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” Raffi interrupted Elnor’s thoughts again; she was looking him up and down, worry at the corners of her eyes. Elnor smoothed unnecessarily at his crisp clothes and gave her a more confident smile.</p>
<p>“Yes. I’m just a little nervous. This place is...very beautiful, but not somewhere I think I’d be very comfortable for long.”</p>
<p>Raffi’s expression cleared. She leaned in a little closer. “You feel that too, huh?” she said, dropping her voice. “Talk about the uncanny valley. This place is way too perfect. Everybody here’s real nice, now, but that’s sort of a new development. I get the feeling they’re pretty excited we’re about to be leaving.” She quirked up her eyebrows. “That’s fine. Feeling’s mutual. But hey, I hear you’re coming with us after all!” she added, more conversationally. “What made you change your mind?”</p>
<p>Elnor tried not to look as guilty as he felt. His eyes tracked Hugh moving through the loose crowd, keeping an eye on the xBs while seeming just to admire some of the installations of orchids in white stone planters around the fountain. He looked so different out of the black uniform he’d returned to aboard the Artifact; the smart, plain grey tunic and loose matching pants softened his appearance. The bright sunlight picked out threads of silver in his soft dark hair and made the dark shadows under his eyes less prominent. He stood a little straighter, smiled a little broader, it seemed, and Elnor was glad to see him happy. It made the prospect of leaving him here a little more bearable. “Hugh suggested I go with you,” he said. “There won’t be much I can do to help him until they get resettled on Earth, and in the meantime I might learn some things traveling with you that could be useful when I return. It will only be for a few months, but I’m looking forward to spending more time with you all.”</p>
<p>“Aww,” Raffi said, only teasing a little. She gave his shoulder a friendly squeeze. “We missed you too, Elnor.”</p>
<p>“Glad you’ll be with us a little longer,” Captain Rios added, materializing in a faint cloud of tobacco smoke. He looked precisely the same as he always did, except there was a flame-red flower threaded incongruously through the top buttonhole of his vest. He gave Elnor a shrewd look, gesturing at him with his cigar. “Picard told us all about what you did for him on the Artifact. I don’t mind keeping your sword arm around with us a little longer. We’re still not sure where we’re going, next, but I’m betting it’s going to come in handy wherever we end up.”</p>
<p>“I hope I can be of help,” Elnor said politely. Somewhere across the square, music started playing, like a harp, exactingly beautiful. “Admiral Picard is no longer my <i>rrhadam,</i> but I’m still bound to keep him safe, and the rest of you, too, if I can.”</p>
<p>Rios coughed a little. “Your <i>what</i>?”</p>
<p>“My oath-holder,” Elnor translated. “The person I’m bound to as a <i>qalankhkai.</i> I made a new oath to Hugh and the other xBs when I stayed on the Artifact to protect them.”</p>
<p>“You take that really seriously,” Raffi said, not really a question. She watched him with an expression that reminded Elnor strongly of his mother. “I’m sure they’ll be alright til you get back to them. A chunk of that time they’ll be traveling, anyway; it’s a long way back to Earth from here.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Elnor said, nodding. “But I’ll miss them.”</p>
<p>Raffi smiled a little wistfully, then took him by the wrist and tugged him after her. “Come on. Let’s go see if we can dig up some snacks in robotworld.”</p>
<p>They did, indeed, find some very good food the synths were preparing for them out of replicators unlike anything Elnor had ever seen before, complicated and powerful-looking machines that created a dizzying array of elaborate dishes. Even the synths seemed excited to eat, which Elnor had not really expected, somehow; the xBs were a little warier of the colorful and aromatic dishes, completely unrecognizable after months or years of simple rationed sustenance. Elnor tried to encourage them to try a little of everything. Most everything was delicious, like nothing at all he’d ever eaten; this fact seemed to disappoint a couple of the synths, who told him they’d replicated a few Romulan dishes for him particularly. He was grateful, but had to tell them that he didn’t know anything about Romulan cuisine, really—that, where he was from, the food was as much a melange of Romulan and human cooking styles and flavors and ingredients as their language was a mix of three or four human languages and at least as many Inxtian dialects melded into something wholly Vashtine. He tried to describe some of his favorite things to eat back home, the colors and spices, how he would make food from scratch out of the plants they grew in the chapterhouse garden, and found a dozen synthetic and organic eyes looking back at him, blank with confusion and even faint disbelief.</p>
<p>“If I had the equipment and ingredients, I’d make you some right now,” he laughed self-consciously, “but there’s plenty to eat already. When I get to earth, I’ll cook for you all,” he told the xBs with a grin that several of them returned.</p>
<p>“We’ll hold you to that,” Corvus said, smiling, but serious, his dark eyes intent. Elnor gave him a smile and a definitive nod, comforting himself with the pleasant thought of cooking for all his new friends in their new home once they were settled there, of doing something familiar in a place so strange and distant, a little bit of his home going with him wherever he traveled.</p>
<p>More music was struck up as the day went on; the harp, he found out, was actually a Vulcan lyre being played by a synth named Calanthe, and she was joined by others picking up instruments and putting them down, rotating in and out as they seemed moved to—a flute, a lute-like stringed instrument, a sort of echoing chime with a tone so crystalline it almost hurt Elnor’s ears. At one point, Nan ventured boldly over and asked Calanthe something that made the synth burst into a bright smile; she drew from the folds of her plum-colored robe a strange little hand tool that lit with a bright glow as she waved it over a molded plastic chair. The shape of it rearranged into a rectangular box slightly taller than wide, making Elnor blink. Nan seemed a little taken aback, too, but then after a moment to inspect Calanthe’s strange device, she moved to sit astride the box and began tapping the face of it experimentally, producing hollow thrumming thumps. She grinned broadly, resettled more comfortably, and set up a quick, sharp rhythm on the front and sides of the box that was quickly picked up by the lute, the lyre, the flute, and then by a few of the synths as they began to dance to the beat. Elnor couldn’t help but grin, tap his toes along. He loved to dance, had since he was very small, dancing with his mother at a festival he barely remembered as more than bright colors and loud music and laughter. On Vashti, he and his sisters often sang and danced together, and the colony had once commemorated things like good harvests and important weddings, before times grew too lean and distrustful. There had been a lot of drinking and dancing, and Elnor had learned how humans celebrated things. It had been a long time since there had been anything worth celebrating, and he itched to go dance, now, join the easygoing synths who moved unselfconsciously, out of the pure pleasure of doing it. They drew some of the xBs into the circle with them; there weren’t steps to learn, or rules, just moving with the rhythm in the warm sunlight. Elnor saw Corvus and Kirk and the little blue-eyed xB all laughing in the midst of the beautiful crowd, swaying like wildflowers in the breeze.</p>
<p>Instead of dancing, though, Elnor slipped away from Raffi and Rios and Agnes, picking his way along the edges of the crowd until he found Hugh sitting alone on a low wall, watching the dancers. When he saw Elnor, his expression softened not quite to a smile, and he nodded when his <i>qalankhkai</i> asked if he could sit.</p>
<p>They watched their friends spin and smile and stumble through movements that for some of them still looked a little unnatural, or half-forgotten, but all excited and guileless, like they couldn’t <i>not</i> dance to the music, in the sunlight. Elnor’s hand rested against Hugh’s, warm on the sunsoaked white stone, and he imagined again what living on Earth would be like, whether they would have opportunities there to dance and make music, to eat together and tell stories as they had been doing these past few weeks. Wherever these people went, he was sure, these things would go with them; would they make friends in their new home who would want to hear their stories and spend time with them? What kind of welcome could they expect? He almost asked Hugh these questions as they swirled around his head, but when he turned to him, Hugh’s expression was drawn and distant, forehead creased, eyes not even focused on the others anymore, a thousand light years away. Maybe he was thinking of Earth, too, and all the work that he’d need to do there. Elnor slid his fingers around Hugh’s hand and gave it a soft squeeze, and Hugh turned to him and finally did smile, a little, though his worried look didn’t entirely smooth away. It seemed wrong to pepper him with questions now; there would be time for all that later.</p>
<p>The synths and xBs danced and played music together as the sun crested and arced away, the light turning golden and thick as the sand that surrounded them. Without Elnor realizing it, <i>La Sirena</i>’s crew had gathered at the other end of the courtyard from the others, talking amongst themselves in a knot, and then Elnor heard his name, and saw Admiral Picard looking at him expectantly, and his stomach lurched.</p>
<p>“Time for you to go,” Hugh said softly before Elnor could react; their hands were still linked, and he pressed Elnor’s fingers gently. Swallowing reflexively, Elnor turned to look at him, at his now easier smile, all worry gone from his face.</p>
<p>“I—yes,” Elnor said haltingly, unwilling, now that the moment had come, to face it. It was an inconvenient reaction, but Elnor let himself feel the loss of it, the sudden fear and familiar uncertainty that he was doing the right thing, after all. He glanced between Hugh and the Admiral, both of them brave and honorable men, both of them people Elnor would willingly follow to the ends of the galaxy and beyond...but only one to whom he owed his loyalty. And <i>not</i> the one he was leaving with now.</p>
<p>“It’s alright, Elnor,” Hugh said, even quieter, barely more than a whisper. His smile broadened. “You’re needed there for now. I’ll be fine.”</p>
<p>“I know you will,” Elnor said, and he did; that wasn’t the thing sticking in his chest, aching. But he didn’t have the words, right now, to voice whatever that thing was. He said instead, “Can I contact you? See how things are doing, so I can know when it’s right for me to come?”</p>
<p>Hugh’s smile faltered. “It may not be possible,” he said. “We’ll be here waiting for transport for a while, yet, and then it could be weeks before we get to Earth. It’ll be some time before there’s anything permanent enough for us to keep open communication.” Elnor’s face must have reflected his keen disappointment, because Hugh hurriedly added, “As soon as we’re settled in, I’ll get word to you, and let you know how to keep in touch. Alright?”</p>
<p>“I don’t like leaving like this, without a way to contact you,” Elnor said, honestly, but resigned, though guilt ate at his heart. “But I understand it’s what we have to do.” He forced himself to let go of Hugh’s hand, then, and stand, bowing deep over his unfolded palms, his unbraided hair sliding sleek over his shoulders to frame his face. “<i>Jolan’tru</i>, Hugh,” he said, quiet and warm and full of determined promises he could not say. Before he could straighten again, Hugh had stood and pulled him firmly into a hug, and Elnor wrapped his arms around him tightly, selfishly, just for a moment.</p>
<p>“Be safe, my friend,” Hugh whispered against Elnor’s ear. Elnor nodded, but couldn’t say anything in reply; the wild urge to kiss Hugh again threatened to break him open, but...not here, with so many other people around. Finally, after far too long and nowhere near long enough, Hugh drew back, and so Elnor did too, then made himself turn away and go say goodbye to the other xBs, who had been watching them intently. They knew that he was leaving; they knew Hugh had asked him to leave. Elnor thought Corvus had spent part of last night trying to talk Hugh out of it. He looked unhappy, now, as Elnor hugged the blue-eyed xB, gently easing the tears off their pale, scarred cheek and accepting their otherwise stony silence. Nan gave him a hug, too, though she was all chatter, excitedly telling him to hurry and join them on Earth, that they had so many things to try once he got there. Some of the others shook his hand, or sketched him a bow in return for his own, or simply nodded. Fourth of Twelve gathered Elnor’s hands in his own strange, glossy dark ones and pressed his forehead to the backs of them; his skin was as warm and smooth as a fire-heated stone, and his expression was as always unreadable, but Elnor nodded to him, anyway, overwhelmed, and that seemed to satisfy him.</p>
<p>Corvus bundled him in a rib-cracking hug. “Don’t you dare forget about us,” he growled into Elnor’s shoulder, and Elnor laughed, almost a sob, feeling as though perhaps his bones <i>had</i> been crushed, just a little.</p>
<p>“I will come to you as soon as I can be sure to do you the most good,” he said, the very closest he would get to a promise. He wiped at his eyes as Corvus finally let him go, holding him at arms’ length and regarding him with a severe look.</p>
<p>“You’d better,” he replied. “Hugh doesn’t know how much he needs you. But he’s going to find out.”</p>
<p>“Then I will come,” Elnor said, squeezing Corvus’ strong forearms. “I’m sworn to all of you. I will do whatever you need me to do.”</p>
<p>“Elnor,” Admiral Picard’s voice came again, a little firmer now. Elnor took a step back, looked around at them all, committing their faces to his heart.</p>
<p>“Take care of each other,” he said, then turned and joined his crew, and did not look back: one of his mother’s first admonitions to him. <i>Do not linger on a possibility not pursued, or watch a loved one out of sight. Focus on your task, and if your path leads you back to an unmade choice or a person you miss, then you will know you have completed the work you were meant to do.</i></p>
<p>He still had work to do with Picard, it seemed, and the smiles on Raffi’s and Rios’ and Agnes’ faces, the Admiral’s warm hand on his shoulder, Soji’s weight leaning slightly into his side, all felt like a welcome back to the place he was meant to be. But he knew it would be days, weeks, perhaps, before he got the image of Hugh’s distant eyes and worried brow out of his mind. He hoped the time went quickly. He was eager for his work as <i>qalankhkai</i> to really begin.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. epilogue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“There’s an incoming signal,” Elnor said. The relayed alert from his station on the bridge flashed across his PADD, startling him out of staring blankly down at the screen as he’d been doing for the last half-hour. The notification was startling enough in itself; he’d never gotten one like this before, edged in red and blinking—<i>distress beacon</i>, the label helpfully read. It was also surprising because of where they were: namely, the middle of nowhere, skirting the edge of the Romulan blast zone, the vast segment of the Beta Quadrant burnt barren in the wake of the supernova, on their way back to Freecloud for a quick drop-off. Rios had said this was the fastest way to get there, and, after a brief tussle with the Admiral over their route’s safety, speed had won out. Nobody here particularly wanted to be going back to Freecloud with their last trip’s memories still so lurid in their minds, but it was on the way to Qo’noS, where Admiral Picard had some kind of vague business he hadn’t shared many details of, yet. But, then, he rarely shared details if he didn’t absolutely have to. In many ways, he was still, as Captain Rios said sometimes when Picard was well out of earshot, the same pigheaded, arrogant starship captain he had been when in command of the <i>Enterprise</i>. He told his crew exactly what they needed to know, and no more, and he often told Elnor even less.</p>
<p>It wasn’t intentional secrecy, Elnor had come to understand, though it still rankled; Picard was simply used to things being a certain way, including a flow of information from the top down, and he did not bend very easily. Rios and Raffi, being former Starfleet themselves, could often anticipate his orders or interpret meanings from things he didn’t say more cogently than from what he did. This sometimes left Agnes, Soji, and Elnor racing to catch up, but Elnor felt he was the only one who struggled with the lack of information, or the conflicting instructions he sometimes received, at odds both with Absolute Candor and with what Elnor felt was common sense. Picard took risks, and did not always let Elnor know ahead of time that he was planning to take them. He tried not to let his frustration show, and simply did his best to protect his new friends when he could, and to help out around <i>La Sirena</i> in times when nothing particularly dangerous was happening.</p>
<p>He wasn’t entirely sure he was learning very much, but he <i>was</i> enjoying himself in some respects, Picard’s enigmatic personality notwithstanding. Within the first week back on the ship, Raffi had assigned Elnor to comms, perhaps because she was tired of him asking her questions about what she was doing at her station all the time; he hoped in time to learn all the ship’s functions and be able to man any station on the bridge, if needed. He’d spent a lot of time talking to Enoch and the hospitality program, who stubbornly refused to take any of Elnor’s or Soji’s suggestions for a name, but who otherwise was incredibly accommodating with general information about the ship, its design and construction, and useful tidbits about Captain Rios to keep in one’s back pocket in case blackmail was ever needed. Elnor had become more or less comfortable with running his station when needed, but for the most part, he kept notifications active on his PADD and wandered every inch of the ship, learning its ins and outs and trying to think of it as a temporary home, instead of a place he was staying as he waited to go somewhere else.</p>
<p>It had been an eventful time, bouncing among various places, each one fascinating and unique and alien to Elnor, vibrant and terrifying in its own way. He’d tried to make the most of every encounter—even the unpleasant ones. Every new face he met, every scuffle he was in, every part of <i>La Sirena</i> he could learn, all were valuable in themselves and as learning experiences for a future with the Borg Reclamation Project, where he had no idea yet what he might be asked to do. He was more grateful now than ever for Mother Zani’s instruction, for everything he’d learned with the Qowat Milat about candor and care for the smallest of beings and the smallest of details. Everyone from a fearful Orion terrified of being sold back to the Syndicate to a silver-tongued Ferengi with a knife hidden up his sleeve had been a test of Elnor’s training. He hoped so far he had proven his worth to his crew, to Admiral Picard, and to himself.</p>
<p>But in all that time, he had not heard from Hugh. At first, the silence was easy to explain and push to the back of his mind; the time it would take to transfer the xBs and drones in stasis to Earth might account for a month or more, as Agnes told him over and over. After that, as Hugh had said, it would take a while just to find places for everyone to live and for him to begin working again. As two months rolled into three, Elnor studied the design of <i>La Sirena</i>’s weapons systems and kept his own weapon skills sharp with target practice on the holodeck, and tried not to wonder how long it should take for Hugh to find a computer terminal he could rely on and send him a message. It felt like being ungrateful for the time he’d been given to learn and grow, and the opportunity to be Hugh’s <i>qalankhkai</i> at all, and the last thing he’d ever wanted to be, for as long as he could remember, was ungrateful.</p>
<p>By the fifth month, he was spending hours every day in the holodeck, emerging exhausted and bathed in sweat, and Soji was shooting him worried looks across the mess hall as he sat and poked listlessly at his PADD, his mind wandering too far and too restlessly for him to grab any coherent thoughts for his journal. They all circled in manic orbit around the central black hole of his fear: <i>Where was Hugh?</i> There had been no word from him at all, and there was no way—the Admiral had investigated and regretfully informed Elnor—to know who he might contact on Earth to speak to him; even his friend Dr. Crusher had not been able to give him more information. Either no one in Starfleet knew anything, or they were all unwilling to speak about the xBs. The small, gnawing pangs of guilt that had nestled deep in Elnor’s belly the day he left Coppelius had grown and multiplied, threatening to swallow him whole. <i>Where was Hugh?</i> At night, still struggling with nightmares, Elnor curled sleepless around the leaden ball of his ugliest fears: Hugh had forgotten him, or, worse, had knowingly left him behind. He’d never intended to contact him, never intended for Elnor to come to Earth at all. He didn’t want Elnor’s help or his oath; he didn’t want <i>Elnor</i>, not even for the modicum of safety his <i>tan qalanq</i> could provide.</p>
<p>Was that worse than the other fears, that Hugh was hurt or dead, that something terrible had happened to the transport, or that they had all been locked away when they got to Earth? <i>There was never any plan to bring them to Earth,</i> the memory of Hugh’s voice whispered in his ear. The words took on shades of fear and defeat Elnor wasn’t sure now hadn’t been there when Hugh had spoken them. What if there still was no plan when they arrived, and they had been turned away, set adrift again in another floating tomb, waiting to die? Night after night, Elnor clawed the blankets away from his face and throat and heaved upright, gulping air and touching his face where the Zhat Vash blade still burned, making his skin crawl. He closed his eyes tight, but the image of Narissa’s face remained, and still, there was silence from Earth, ringing and final, every moment of every day.</p>
<p>It had been six months, and Elnor knew now that there was no message coming. One way or another, he had failed Hugh again; his fear and doubt about the whereabouts of his friends had settled into a certainty that, once again, he had been left behind.</p>
<p>“What k—” Raffi began, not looking up from her book.</p>
<p>“Distress call,” Elnor said, thumbing off his PADD and sliding out of the bench to climb the stairs two at a time to the bridge. He dropped into his blanket-strewn seat at the little comms station, pushing a loose wisp of hair from his face and tucking it back into his neatly-pinned bun with one hand while waking up his console with the other. “Coming from...nowhere. A set of coordinates in the middle of an asteroid field.”</p>
<p>Raffi had followed him at a more sedate pace; she leaned over his shoulder, now, to peer at his display, her familiar smell of tea and snakeleaf helping calm his raw nerves. He took and released a deep breath. He hadn’t gotten decent sleep since he couldn’t remember when. “That’s weird,” she mused, tapping the indicated coordinates, zooming in a little. “Looks like it’s from some escape pod, but where in the world did it come from?”</p>
<p>It was a rhetorical question; Elnor didn’t bother answering, just skimmed the small readout of information on the beacon’s frequency. “It looks pretty weak. Might have been out there a while. We should hurry, any survivors might not even still be alive.”</p>
<p>Raffi frowned, then hailed the captain’s quarters. “Chris, you awake?”</p>
<p>After a protracted silence, a sleepy, slurring voice grumbled back over the intercom. “Am now. What’s up?”</p>
<p>“Sending you some info on a distress beacon we picked up. It’s not really out of our way, considering there’s nothing else out here, and it looks like they might not be long for the world. I’m gonna lock on and redirect, give you and Agnes time to put some pants on at least.”</p>
<p>“You’re too kind,” he mumbled, and the line cut out.</p>
<p>The ship powered itself down out of hyperspace a few minutes later, as they approached the beacon’s location; or, rather, Emmet powered the ship down, materializing in the pilot’s station with his feet propped up on the console and a hideous floppy bucket hat Elnor had never seen before draped over his face. He didn’t stir the entire time, just reclined there, snoring softly, but the ship still brought itself smoothly to a stop at the edge of a vast expanse of asteroids and space dust that filled the viewer, weirdly blotting out the starlight, making it look as if half the galaxy just weren’t there. Elnor swallowed back a sudden revulsion wriggling up his throat; he didn’t know for sure, and probably no one did, but there was no reason at all these broken bits of rock might not be far-flung pieces of Romulus. Or Inxtis. Or anywhere else people like him had once lived. He turned away from the viewer, heart pounding; it was a moment before he found his voice, wetting his lips before saying, “It’s just a little further in. The signal is weakening—could be interference from the asteroids.”</p>
<p>“Could be a degraded signal,” Captain Rios said, hauling himself up the stairs to the bridge, looking every bit like he’d just rolled out of bed, almost as bedraggled as Emmet. He yawned, pushing a hand back through his hair, trying fruitlessly to order it. As he passed by on the way to his seat, he kicked the back of Emmet’s, making the hologram snort and startle upward, dropping his ugly hat to the floor and swearing softly in Spanish as he blinked blearily at Chris, indignant.</p>
<p>“ENH, <i>off</i>,” he growled, cutting Emmet off mid-insult. He sighed heavily and took over manual control of <i>La Sirena,</i> easing her very carefully a little closer to the asteroid field. “Jesus, this is a mess. I’d rather not get too deep in that if we don’t have to, kid. Can you get a more precise lock on the location?”</p>
<p>Elnor nodded, remembered Rios couldn’t see him from the captain’s chair, and said, “Working on it. The coordinates are one-seven-three, mark—oh!”</p>
<p>There was a flash of light in the viewer at almost the exact same moment the proximity alarms in the cabin started going off full bore. “Holy—!” Rios exclaimed, as Raffi dove for her own seat and pulled the shields up to maximum. Just outside their viewer and a little to their right, another ship hung in space, like no ship Elnor had ever seen before: small and sleek, silver, arrow-shaped, with variegated lights running down the sides, pulsing in slow rhythm like the bioluminescence of some underwater creature.</p>
<p>“What the fuck?” Raffi said, but it wasn’t really a question; she sounded completely dumbfounded. “What <i>is</i> that?”</p>
<p>“I have no fucking—kid, hail it, already!”</p>
<p>Elnor shook himself, immediately opening all frequencies. “Unidentified vessel, please give us your designation. With visual, please.”</p>
<p>He sensed more than saw Raffi roll her eyes at him and tried not to care what she thought about his being polite to strangers in strange ships. After a tense couple of seconds, the viewer flipped to show a ship interior almost as sleek as the outside, all glass and chrome and soft pastel lights illuminating a familiar, half-smirking face, lighting her fall of golden hair in pale pinks and greens.</p>
<p>“Elnor?” said Seven of Nine.</p>
<p>“Seven?” said Elnor, Raffi, and Captain Rios at the same time.</p>
<p>“Since when did Picard make you comms officer?” she said, and Elnor could hear now that she was teasing him, and smiled back at her. Rios made an offended noise.</p>
<p>“Excuse you, this is <i>my</i> ship. I say who gets what position around here. He’s handy on the switchboard; what can I say? What are you doing out here? In...whatever <i>that</i> is?”</p>
<p>She looked around at her quite literally flashy surroundings, expression an odd mix of smug and chagrined. “Oh, this old thing? Well, turns out beggars can’t be choosers when fleeing a planet better known for its conspicuous consumption than its good taste. I could ask you the same question, and I think you’d have more explaining to do. I’m <i>supposed</i> to be here. I’m on patrol. What’s your story?”</p>
<p>“Picked up this distress call,” Rios said. “Same as you, I guess?”</p>
<p>She nodded. Behind her in the cabin, another person moved, too far in the shadows cast by the illuminated main controls to be easily visible. “This galaxy’s getting smaller and smaller. Why don’t you let me go in after it?” She grinned wickedly. “Wouldn’t want you to scratch up your pretty paint job. Where’s Picard, by the way?”</p>
<p>“Asleep, where I should be,” Rios said. “Next time you want to do all the dirty work in the sector, just tell a guy, you know?”</p>
<p>“If I’d known you were out here do-gooding, I wouldn’t have bothered.” She paused, glancing back over her shoulder, as if listening. Then she frowned. “What?” she said, barely audible.</p>
<p>“Who’s there with you?” Raffi asked, leaning in a little as if that could get her a better view of the cockpit of Seven’s little cruiser. For a moment, Seven didn’t answer, still having some kind of argument with the person behind her, then she turned back, exasperated.</p>
<p>“Someone who’s being <i>completely</i> ridiculous,” she said. “Elnor? Hugh says hello.”</p>
<p>“Seven!” a man’s voice was faintly audible over the line. Elnor’s stomach dropped.</p>
<p>“What?” he said, confused and thrilled and queasy all at the same time.</p>
<p>Seven looked over her shoulder, again, and then the silhouette behind her stepped forward into the light, and Hugh peered back at them, looking like a ghost picked out in pastel panel lights, dark eyes sunken and days’ worth of stubble darkening his jaw. His hair hung limp in his face, and he was wrapped in a too-big, shapeless dark coat, his hands stuffed deep in the pockets. He looked like he’d rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, than here talking to them. “Hello,” he said quietly, finally meeting Elnor’s eyes in the viewer. “Hello, Elnor.”</p>
<p>Elnor just stared back for what felt like ages, feeling his shipmates’ eyes furtively on him. He could barely see the person he’d left six months ago in the figure onscreen now; even injured and half-dead on the Artifact, Hugh hadn’t looked this sick and pale and distant. Suddenly every one of the worst-case scenarios he’d half-dreamed over the last several months converged in Elnor’s mind, and he knew in that instant that he had made a mistake. He never should have left Hugh. He never should have let him go.</p>
<p>“Hello, Hugh” he said, hearing his own voice from very far away. “Where have you been?”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>special shoutout to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/xBs_and_impalas">xBs_and_impalas</a>, whose idea of Elnor making his station on <i>La Sirena</i> extra cozy with some tasteful throw blankets was too precious not to shamelessly steal&lt;3</p>
<p>and that's that for this one, y'all! thank you immensely to every soul who gave this a read, and obnoxious kisses to all who left kudos or comments. but biggest thanks and most inappropriate public displays of affection are reserved for my co-conspirator and beta extraordinaire, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/kennel_boy">Kennel_Boy</a>, whose <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24380785/chapters/58805068"><i>Picard</i> fic</a> you should immediately drop everything to go read if you have not yet done so. not a single word of this would have existed without her.&lt;3</p>
<p>stay tuned for more from this AU, but for now, stay safe and stay well, and hug your local xB today.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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